Facing Destiny
by Emersonian
Summary: With an eclipse bringing eternal darkness approaching and dooming Storybrooke, Fidget will have to face the dark truths of his past, his heart's desires, and the destiny that was written for him while confronting the Evil One. In the past, Fidget's patron Kaïra must achieve a godly quest while facing a deadly labyrinth and its lustful Goblin King. THIS STORY IS DISCONTINUED. ADOPT.
1. The Young Patron

FACING DESTINY

The Young Patron

 _Flashback:_ _Asgard, year 1758_

Asgard, home of the Norse gods and goddesses, was having another prosperous day. The sun was shining, the men went to hunt wild boars for tonight's feast, laughter was within the divine streets, and children were having fun playing war games with their ponies. Every god and goddess seemed to enjoy the outdoors today.

Well, there was only one immortal who preferred to enjoy the indoors on this warm, sunny day.

Up in her room in the royal palace, Kaïra sat by her vanity mirror. She wasn't a vain young goddess in training, as some claimed. And it wasn't because of her mysterious heritage as a half-Frost Giantess that she stayed inside to protect her pale skin from the sun.

" _Show me the Batrishan that I seek_ ," she told the mirror. The mirror's glass vibrated with life as it showed Kaïra what she wanted to see.

She saw the baby Batrishan that she had placed in front of St. Alejandro's Chapel last year and that the All-Mother Friga tasked her to patronize. The baby had been adopted by the Denada Cortés family, an aristocratic couple with great connections to the Aldoradian royalty and military. Hernan and Geneva Denada Cortés had proven so far that they were loving parents to Fitzgerald (the name they had given the lucky child).

Today was supposed to be Fitzgerald's first birthday, but since the Aldoradians were unaware of it and chose to keep Fitzgerald away from his past (Kaïra was grateful for that), they had decided to that his birthday would be on the day he was adopted. The little Batrishan was seen playing with his foster mother in the nursery of his home, the Denada Cortés Estate. At first, the infant was crawling towards Geneva, whose arms were wide open and waiting for her son to come embrace her. The cute thing was so eager to reach his mother that he managed to lift himself up on his feet and toddle towards her.

"Fidget, look at you!" Geneva said in excitement as she saw her son walk. "Your first steps!" The nursery's door opened and in came Carmen, the Denada Cortés' black maid.

"Is everything alright, mis...Lord bless me! Is the young master toddling already?" Carmen asked in bewilderment as she saw Fidget toddle and fall into his mother's happy arms.

"He sure did." Geneva smiled at her son, who was laughing in her arms. "He learned his first steps a week before his first birthday! Oh, wait until Hernan sees it!"

The mirror vibrated once more until Kaïra could only see her own reflection in the mirror.

" _Happy birthday, Fitzgerald,_ " she said as her reflection showed her swirly green eyes shedding tears.

" _You're still thinking of last year, aren't you?_ " A voice caught Kaïra's attention. She looked up and saw the reflection of the All-Mother Friga standing in front of the closed door of Kaïra's chambers.

Friga walked towards Kaïra and placed her two motherly hands on the young goddess' shoulders. " _I know you still wished you could have protected him by raising him as your own, my dear. But keeping him in Asgard would have caused trouble between the Aesir and the Evil One. And you don't want people to see you as a troublemaker, right?_ "

Kaïra nodded in understanding. Almost like Fidget, she herself had been abandoned by her own biological parents and found by the shores of the icy river connecting Asgard to the realm of the Frost Giants. Odin had been merciful despite how the last he raised someone from that species turned out wrong; besides, the baby was barely a day old and full of innocence. He and Friga had adopted the infant and named her Kaïra after the river where she was first seen.

" _Shed those tears, my dear_ ," Friga said kindly as her fingers wiped off the tears from Kaïra's eyes. " _You mustn't be seen with them at tonight's feast._ "

Kaïra took a calm deep breath. The All-Mother was right, for tonight was going to be important: when the sun sets in the horizon and the Aesir troubadours enlighten the gods during their festivities, all the sixteen-year-old gods and goddesses in training like Kaïra would be summoned by Odin to go on quests to prove their worth among the Aesir. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity that Kaïra knew she shouldn't blow. If she came out of whichever task she received dishonored, how could she ever patronize the young Fitzgerald as he grows up towards his destiny?

As if reading her mind, Friga had Kaïra look her in the eye while saying these words:

" _I know what you're thinking, Kaïra, and you don't need to worry. No matter what obstacles come ahead, the Batrishan will live up to the Fates' expectations._ "


	2. Stolen Scroll And Border Issues

FACING DESTINY

Stolen Scroll and Border Issues

Summertime in Storybrooke was quite a rare thing for Killian.

It's not that he wasn't used to seasons in this small town, but almost every single thing he lived through, almost every single villainous threat that took place in this town occurred in seasons like spring, winter, or late fall.

But this time, Killian was having his very first summer in Storybrooke. And so far, it was quite good if not usual. The weather would go from hot in the high 80 degrees to the usual around the mid 60s. School was out, so many of the town youth spent time at the beach, playing sports, or staying home doing their usual things. With all the available time Henry had now, the boy would either spend time with his family, go sail the JOLLY ROGER with Killian, or go on dates with his girlfriend Violet. Granny's Diner was getting packed with customers once Granny released her special summer agua fresca beverages.

It was now August 1st and Killian was sitting at the diner's bar right when Granny came with a glass of agua fresca.

"Here you go, Killian," she said as she handed the pirate the glass. "One watermelon agua fresca...on the house."

"It's quite a generous offer," Killian said gratefully, "but I can't accept such a free treat." He began to search for his bag of money in his jacket's pocket.

"Don't even think about it," Granny said. "When it's on the house, it's on the house. Besides, if you're going to end up spending another doubloon, then you might as well give in."

Killian silently chuckled as he did what the old woman said: even though he'd been living in the town for almost more than a year, he still didn't know how to pay with modern cash. As Granny walked back to the kitchen, the pirate went straight ahead and began to drink the agua fresca. He had to admit, the old lady made served some good, cold beverages that weren't rum.

The familiar bell of the diner's door opening was heard, but Killian didn't pay attention to hit until someone pulled the chair next to him and said: "Hey Killian. How are you?"

"Quite well, Bartok. And how about you, mate?"

The white Batrishan chuckled. A few months ago, after inadvertently getting involved in some sort of god, Rosetta Anubisia Romanov, the demigod daughter of Anubis, had traveled to the Enchanted Forest and came back home with a few new friends. Among them was Bartok Ashiva Rex, an ancient Batrishan who kept his life and youth eternal by taking five sips of the Elixir of Nine Lives, which led him to abdicate his former title as Batrishan Prince and seeing the world. Bartok's existence was quite a shock for the heroes of Storybrooke, for they had all assumed that Fitzgerald Denada Cortés, best known as 'Fidget the Bat', was the last of his kind. But Bartok was a Batrishan born _centuries_ before Fidget, and when Rosetta had met the former prince, he was guilty of forcing himself into immortality and had chosen to settle down, marry a fairy named Periwinkle, and have a daughter named Hermia. When Rosetta returned to Storybrooke, Bartok didn't hesitate to bring his family with him, for he didn't want to lose them.

"I'm doing well," Bartok presently told Killian. "I just dropped off my wife and daughter at the convent." Since Periwinkle was a fairy and knew Tinker Bell very well, Mother Superior had accepted Periwinkle's offer to contribute some magical help at the monastery for the sake of the town, and due to Hermia's half-fairy heritage, the latter had to take magical training sessions from the fairies.

"That's good," Killian said. "By the way, have you heard anything from Fitzgerald?"

The mention of the dark Batrishan made a look of disdain appear on Bartok's face, for he knew Fidget from the past since the latter forced him to hand over the formula of the Elixir of Nine Lives in order to drink the remaining sips he needed in order to obtain eternal immortality. One of the main reasons Bartok and Tristan the Squire, another surviving Batrishan that Rosetta encountered, came to Storybrooke was so that they could join forces with Fidget in order to figure out a way to solve a certain Batrishan prophecy that would avenge their race from the god who unfairly drove them to extinction. Unfortunately for the former prince and the squire, Fidget had shown direct disdain towards the other two members of his species and their interest in avenging their people. Ever since then, and as far as the heroes knew, Fidget had cut off ties with anyone he knew in Storybrooke and wasn't seen in the last three months. It even included Rosetta, who usually had Tea Thursdays with Fidget.

"Never mind," Killian said as he saw the dark look on Bartok's face. "I guess you didn't see or hear from him."

"If I had know that he would _be so_ neglectful of his own species, I would have never given him that Elixir!" Bartok grumbled.

"To be honest, he was raised by humans and far away from your native land by the will of some gods," Killian said in a defensive tone. "So can you really blame him for feeling more attached to those he grew closer to than to those he was born from?"

Bartok stayed quiet for a bit. "I guess you make a point. But still..." His head perked up. "You don't suppose he left town, do you?"

"I doubt it. I know Fidget, and when he has a goal in his mind, he never gives up on it so easily. Even when his patroness told him that his lifelong goal to kill me was not worth living for, he still chose to remain in town, and even though he refused to be involved with you, Tristan, or your Batrishan history, he still locked himself up in his cottage with a protection barrier around it..."

Two different ringtones were heard and both Bartok and Killian answered them. They listened to their callers and left the diner after hanging up.

 _Later_

"Well, no need to deny that someone made a big break in," Emma said.

The two town sheriffs, Killian, Bartok, his family, and Mother Superior were standing in front of a big crack in one of the walls of the South Wing of the monastery. From the big breach, the inside of what appeared to be a secret, medieval room with one ruined podium stood in front of them.

"We were in the courtyard practicing magic when we heard an explosion coming from within the monastery," Hermia said.

"Mother Superior, what was inside that vault?" David asked.

"An ancient scroll with an ancient text discussing the details of a certain prophecy." Mother Superior looked at Bartok when she said this.

"It's happening," he said. "The Evil One will come." The heroes were shocked, for the Evil One was the dreadful god who had led the Batrishans to extinction and kept hunting them for ages. Periwinkle held on to her daughter's hand in protection.

"But why would the...Evil One...want to steal a scroll about some prophecy he might already know about?" Emma asked.

"Sheriff Swan, no one knows what was written in that scroll," Mother Superior said. "We fairies sealed it and the vault with powerful fairy magic that prevents anyone without fairy blood running through their veins from learning the scrolls secrets."

"Are you saying that we might have an imposter within the monastery?" Periwinkle asked fearfully.

"The possibilities are unknown."

Right after she said this, the ground shook and a thundering zap echoed in the air.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Killian asked.

The group rushed outside. Once they reached the courtyard, the ground shook again and they saw a strange gleam of red light flash over the town as if an invisible dome was protecting it from entering the town.

"Did it come from the town line?" Hermia suggested. "I heard weird things keep happening everytime someone tries to cross it."

"That could be a possibility," David agreed.

Emma's phone rung. She answered it and after a few minutes of talking, she hung it up.

"You're right," she told Hermia. "It came from the border.

 _Much later_

"We were helping Anton out with the bean crops when we saw the light flashing over the town," Leroy explained at the sheriff station a half hour later. "So me, Tristan, Little John, Happy, and Anton went to check it out. We took a video of it."

Happy connected his video camera to the television of the sheriff's station. The heroes, the Bartoks, and Mother Superior watched the video as it showed the group of witnesses trying to cross the town line one by one. Leroy, Little John, Happy, and Anton went one after the other across the line and easily returned unharmed.

"Nothing happened to us when we crossed," Anton said.

"That's odd," Emma said as she frowned. "We've seen things like car accidents, amnesia, flying monkey transformations, no returns, and tree transformations to anyone who crossed the line."

"But here it seems like nothing's happening," David said.

"Uh, yeah, then comes the weird part," Tristan cut in. He pointed to the video, which showed the Batrishan taking his chance of crossing the town line, but once his left foot touched the red line, a red light appeared, sending the squire crashing into Leroy's truck while the light began to hover into the air.

"It only occurred when _I_ tried to get out!" Tristan exclaimed.

"If only Tristan couldn't cross..." Hermia's voice trailed off.

"That means that no Batrishan in Storybrooke can leave," Killian said.

"Leroy, you said you saw a red light coming from the barrier before you want to investigate, right?" Emma said.

"Yep," the dwarf confirmed.

"Tristan was with them when they tried out the barrier and Bartok and Hermia, despite her half-Batrishan heritage, were with us when he felt the barrier shake," David summed up. "Does that mean...?"

"It does." Bartok gave an angry glare at Killian. "Nice job, Killian. No really! What the Hell made you think that Fidget wouldn't try to leave Storybrooke?"


	3. Odd Relationship, Tough Price

FACING DESTINY

Odd Relationship, Tough Price

Theresa was grateful that it was now 3:45 pm. The summer school classes almost always took a long time at the Storybrooke Public School. Sure, it was a delight for her to help the children who were sent by their parents to improve on their education before the fall semester started, but there were times when she felt like her job was tiring.

She was just thankful that by the time classes were done at 3:30pm and students were done asking questions, she could grab her motorcycle and drive back home. Her apartment was located right at the end of the avenue closest to Gary Point Park, which gave quite a peaceful environment. Not too crowded with neighbors and houses, a nice view of the sea, and a charming grove full of fresh pine trees, growing tulips, and a couple picnic tables.

Theresa parked her motorcycle in front of her apartment. From the outside, it looked like a lighter blue version of her colleague Mary Margaret Blanchard's apartment, with a cherry tree growing in the garden and a small, Norwegian fountain for bird's to bathe in. Once she made sure that her parked motorcycle was well secured, Theresa proceeded to walk up the wooden steps and into her apartment.

That's when she noticed a black stain on the wooden plank separating her foot from the door. Theresa could have easily mistaken it for bird poop, but the stain still looked fresh. Carefully, she bent down and placed a finger on the stain. She brought her finger closer to her nose and took a sniff. It smelled and felt like blood.

"What did he do now?" she asked herself out loud. Without hesitating, she got up and quickly got unlocked her door, and when she got in, the small hallway that led towards her apartment's main parlor had a trail of fresh, black, bloody footprints meant solely for a person with a peg-leg.

"Damn it, he had to dirty my floor!" Theresa exclaimed in disbelief as she walked towards the parlor, using magic to dissolve away the blood on the floor. By the time she reached the parlor, the footprints were even bloodier than ever and the trail they made up the metal staircase that connected her apartment's two floors. Her frustration was soon replaced by fear when she saw the amount of blood.

"FITZGERALD?" she called out.

A door opening and the sound of rushing water being turned off were heard coming from upstairs. The next thing Theresa saw was Fitzgerald, in his black trunks, struggling to walk down the staircase. His dark skin, bat wings, and wooden peg leg were soaking wet with hot water while his torso was full of cuts pouring black blood.

"Fitzgerald!" Theresa rushed to help the Batrishan stand on his feet and walk down the stairs until they reached the couch. "Why do you look like you've been wrestling with a tiger in its cage?"

"I tried to cross the town line..." Fitzgerald groaned as he sat on the couch. Much to his misfortune, Theresa's right hand instantly slapped his cheek once he sat down. "OUCH! I'VE ALREADY GOT INJURIES ON MY SIDES, YOU WANT ME TO END UP IN A WHEELCHAIR?"

"No, I want to know what's going in your head!" Theresa quickly went to the kitchen and came back with her magical first aid kit case. She sat next to Fitzgerald as she began to take out some bandages and healing cream. "Why on earth were you trying to leave?"

"I..." The Batrishan winced in pain as Theresa's fingertips placed some healing cream on his wounds, prompting the cut skin to magically stitch itself and look brand new. "Nothing's right with me, Theresa. I've wasted 283 years of my life for a revenge that turned out to be pointless. I gave away my mortality for something wasteful. I've been dwelling in insanity for almost three months now...I don't see what's the point of me staying in Storybrooke. Ouch!"

"Sorry," Theresa apologized as she tightened the bandages around his torso. "But Fitzgerald...Leaving Storybrooke? What about the people you know here?"

"They could care less about me," Fitzgerald said. "Killian and his allies will only see me as the villainous Batrishan who did mad schemes in Storybrooke. Bartok and Tristan..." He paused at the mention of the two other Batrishans in town. "Bartok has hated me ever since I forced him to give me the Elixir of Nine Lives' formula, Tristan sees me as a beast for surviving the Batrishan Genocide and having a luxurious life while he and the others were being chased by the Evil One like animals. I can't relate to any of the two, Theresa. I'm not like them, I wasn't raised like a Batrishan; I don't knowhow to describe my perspective on things, but it certainly isn't Batrishan!" He sighed as Theresa put things back in her case. "Let's face it, I've ruined myself."

"And what about me?" Theresa turned to face him. Fitzgerald bit his lip as they looked into one another's eyes. The young woman had been the one person in this entire town Fitzgerald viewed as his best friend: she had welcomed him when he moved into his old cottage, tended to him when he got sick during Midnight Sparkle's pursuit of his heart, spent time with him like any best friend would, and even allowed him to move into her apartment two months ago after she discovered that he was undergoing a drastic state of depression, isolation, and trauma for a month. No one except the two of them knew that he had been staying in her apartment; as far as any one in town knew, Fitzgerald Denada Cortés was probably still residing in his cottage with a barrier around it.

As for Fitzgerald and Theresa, it was true that their relationship seemed to be going... past the barrier of a simple friendship. But none of them had taken the first step, and Fitzgerald couldn't bear the idea of being with another woman other than his ex-fiancée despite the mutual bond he had with kind, charming, and oddly familiar Theresa Rogers.

"Theresa, I can't..." he began, but Theresa placed a finger on his lips.

"The truth, Fitzgerald," she said quietly. Judging by the way she was looking at him, the Batrishan could tell that she knew that his 'I-don't-want-to cheat-on-my-ex' excuse was a little overused. Theresa knew he had another reason and she wanted him to spill. The Batrishan gave in a surrendering sigh.

"Do you remember what I told you about the potion that I drank to obtain eternal immortality, Theresa?" Fitzgerald asked quietly.

Her green eyes perked in curiosity. "Of course. The Elixir of Nine Lives grants you eternal immortality after drinking nine sips of it and only suicide can kill you...for good." She trembled as she said those last words.

"True," the Batrishans said. "However, I left out the price of the potion."

"Price? Fitzgerald, what did you do?" Theresa began to freak out.

"Nothing! Well, I thought I wouldn't have to pay for it. When the Apprentice gave me the Elixir of Nine Lives, he said that accepting the Elixir's gift of eternal immortality would cost the drinker the death of loved ones. I assumed that I wouldn't have to pay for it since the only people I truly ever loved were dead, and quite frankly, who could ever love me?"

A tear began to roll on his dark cheek but he quickly rubbed it off while Theresa just looked speechless. "I prevented myself of loving anyone as long as I lived in order to avoid paying the price of that magic, and if you ended up getting harmed in any manner for such a price...I...I don't think I could spend an eternal, immortal life forgiving myself..."

"Fitzgerald..." Theresa put a hand on the cheek she had previously slapped him with and stroke it, feeling his warm skin that had an odd texture of fur even though his skin was like a human's. Now she understood why the Batrishan was wary of entering a romantic relationship other than insulting his old flame: he feared that loving Theresa would bring her harm.

An insane idea hit her: "Fitzgerald, what if there was I way to...reduce, or maybe neutralize that immortality?"

The Batrishan's head perked up. "You mean, turn me back into a mortal?"

"Perhaps. Or maybe even make you half-immortal. Basically anyway that could help us find a way to prevent you from paying the price of the Elixir..."

"But would it even work if there were one? I've heard of ways for instance to deprive the Dark One's immortality, one of the ways being true love's kiss, but almost everytime they were applied, none of them worked. The only time I heard of the Dark One losing his immortality was Rumplestiltskin, but that's because the Apprentice removed the darkness tethered to his soul in order to save his heart. I don't even now what effects could occur to me for removing my immortality. Heck, I might shrivel into dust."

"We'll search for it," Theresa said hopefully. "We can find a solution and perhaps we can finally have what the Elixir forced you to fear. You could finally have a new purpose to live!"

His eyes darted off into the void in order to think things through until he made the conclusion that she was right. Perhaps he wouldn't need to leave Storybrooke. Perhaps he could finally obtain happiness here, with Theresa.

Fitzgerald smiled back at her. "Let's do the impossible."


	4. The Given Quest

FACING DESTINY

The Given Quest

 _Flashback:_ _Asgard, year 1758_

The Great Hall was filled with Aesir by the time Odin, the mighty All-Father, rose from his chair and made a hand gesture signaling the troubadours to silence their festive music and for the loud tables to stop eating and pay attention. Between the two main rows of tables stood about fifty sixteen-year-old gods and goddesses in training. Among the middle row was Kaïra, who was trying very hard to hide the body's shaking vibrations. She dreaded what kind of quest she would receive and if whether or not she would be able to achieve it.

" _My fellow Aesir_ ," Odin spoke out in a deep voice that made the pillars boom and the air vibrate at each word he spoke. " _Today is the day our young gods and goddesses in training have been waiting for. This is the day where Yggdrasil, The Tree Of Life, assigns these young ones the tasks they must achieve to prove their worth among the Aesir and their destinies as future gods and goddesses._ " He then addressed the young ones in question as they bowed before him. " _Young ones, Yggdrasil will soon shower the scrolls of your quest to me. Once I have read out loud your quests and you have accepted them, the scrolls will be burned and their ashes will go back to Yggdrasil. Let the ceremony begin!_ "

All the gods looked at the ceiling, where branches of Yggdrasil, the Tree Of Life, were moving and glowing as scrolls began to drop from them one by one into the hands of the All-Father, who read the god or goddess-in-training's name and the quest her or she must complete. So far the given quests didn't seem so horrible: one goddess-in-training needed to fetch a certain herb from Vanaheim in order to create a cure for a certain disease. A god had to help defend a village from marauders that kept harassing the locals daily. Another god needed to fetch Frey's sword from Jotunheim before the next full moon, which was next week.

Finally came the moment that Kaïra feared.

" _Kaïra_ ," Odin called out loud while reading the scroll. All eyes turned on the orphan, whose green eyes watched the All-Father in anxiety as he read the rest of the scroll. " _Your quest will be to..._ " Odin stopped himself in order to give a horrified gasp. " _Retrieve Laevateinn from the Underground?!_ "

Horrified gasps and screams were heard. Kaïra could actually here whispers saying that she was doomed, what a poor child she was, and that she would be dead before even accomplishing the quest. She wished she knew what the fuss was about, but she unfortunately knew nothing about Laevateinn or what the Underground was.

" _Kaïra, this is a very dangerous mission,_ " Odin said sternly. " _No god has ever stepped into the Underground for generations, and due to such danger, Yggdrasil does offer the possibility for you to bring four others with you as aid during your quest._ " He then addressed the crowd of young ones, although Kaïra knew that the chances of him getting a response were slim. " _To any of you young ones, are there four of you who'd be willing enough to give up there own quest in order to join her on this one?_ "

" _We will_ ," four voices said. The crowd was shocked to see who were the four daring souls crazy enough to give up on their quests just to help Kaïra: Magni, Modi, Thrud, and Torun, the sons and daughters of the thunder god Thor. This really surprised Kaïra, for among the members of the royal family, Thor didn't exactly have a good eye on her. But who could blame him? The last Jotun to have been adopted by the royal family had betrayed them, and it really stabbed Thor because that Jotun, Loki, had been like a brother to him.

So yeah, imagine the irony of the situation: Thor's two sons and daughters, all four of them willing to help Kaïra, an orphaned Jotun who grew up with them, despite the fact that their father didn't seem to like his 'foster sister'.

" _Kaïra, do you accept the terms of your quest?_ " Odin said. All the Aesir glared at Kaïra, expecting her to answer.

A minute later, the scroll was burned.

 _Later, in Kaïra's room._

' _Laevateinn the sickle spear is one of the most formidable weapons in all the nine realms. Forged with Uru and extremely rare and indestructible gold by the dwarves of Nidavellir, this sickle spear is reputed for causing earthquakes when piercing the ground, summoning armies during the storms of night, and other diverse magical abilities that could make its bearer feared and powerful. However, Laevateinn is very selective. Only tricksters can wield it.'_

" _Oh this is just marvelous!_ " Kaïra exclaimed in anger as she tossed the book she was just reading onto the floor and slumped onto a chair. She rubbed her forehead as she heard a knock on the door. " _Yes, come in,_ " she said while taking a deep breath. The door opened and in came Thrud.

" _Hey, it's me. I came to see if you were ready to go for the quest_ ," she said.

" _I wi-umph!"_ Kaïra couldn't finish speaking, for Thrud instantly covered the former's mouth with her hand.

" _You should avoid putting and saying those two words together_ ," she warned as she removed her hand. " _Where we're going,_ _ **he**_ _can hear anything whenever someone pronounces those words together._ "

" _He?"_ Kaïra frowned.

" _No one has ever told you?_ " Thrud gasped.

" _Do you think I'd be asking if I knew?_ " Kaïra asked coldly. Thrud grabbed a nearby chair and sat on it. She adjusted her blonde hair so that it wouldn't bother her while she spoke.

" _Back in the very old days, barely after man was born, an entity as powerful as the gods was created from Tartarus in order to bring balance between the forces of life,"_ Thrud explained. " _That entity became the entity of Evil itself, the spirit that flows through every villain that ever existed so that bad could help good maintain the balance of harmony._

" _Eventually, the entity had godly offspring of its own, two twins, a daughter and a son. The daughter, the eldest born, became Discordia, the goddess of discord and chaos, and the son was Jareth, who still had yet to prove himself._

" _Jareth was an envious soul. His sister was more powerful than him and their father really seemed to favor her. Jareth wanted so badly to prove himself, to make his father proud of him, and to show that he could be as equally powerful as his sister. So he did the unimaginable._ "

" _What? What did he do?_ " Kaïra asked.

" _He took the Dark One's dagger, stabbed the Dark One from back then- I think the Dark One back then was Nimue or maybe Vlad, and took the power making him the new Dark One!_ "

Kaïra gasped. She might not have ever heard the stories of Jareth and Laevateinn, but she certainly heard the stories of the Dark Ones, how mortals obtained immortality and endless dark powers by stabbing the Dark One and getting their souls corrupted by the darkness contained within them. The idea of a god getting corrupted by such darkness frightened her, and judging by Thrud's facial expression, she could tell what Kaïra was thinking. She continued her story.

" _Jareth became the very first and sole god to have obtained the powers of the Dark One. Like his mortal predecessors, he got corrupted by the darkness, only it drove him to the point where he created centuries of dark days full of plagues, disasters, pain, and suffering for mortals. Even the gods of all the branches began to fear him. As for his father, well, the entity would have been proud of his son until Jareth admitted he did it in order to obtain his father's approval. This displeased the entity, for he had this belief -which many villains had accepted- that if you have evil in you, you must accept it as a part of who you are and use it for power, not for showing who's the best._

" _Jareth got furious by his father's final rejection that he went on a crazy rampage. The gods tried to stop him, but even when the four branches rallied against him, they could do nothing. Jareth had become too powerful. Fortunately, the entity joined the gods, and while they managed to temporarily hold down Jareth, the entity managed to extract the Dark One's powers from Jareth and insert it into a human host. While doing that, he also created a rule for future Dark Ones: should they ever be brought back to life after getting stabbed by the Dark One's dagger or even get the darkness extracted from them the same way Jareth did, they could no longer become the Dark One again, even if they tried again to stab the Dark One._ "

" _And what happened to Jareth in the end?_ " Kaïra asked.

" _The gods had him exiled into the Underground, a realm so deep that it goes past Tartarus or any of the known underworlds. All immortals have been forbidden ever since to go down there unless it was for an emergency. While Jareth was locked there, he vowed to get his revenge and throw the universe into eternal darkness where only he would rule. And since he was forbidden access to ambrosia and nectar, he had to take a monstrous alternative: steal children from adults who wished them away and consume their life forces as they grew up and served him as his slaves. That's why it's dangerous to put the words 'I' and 'wish' together: he can instantly hear it and briefly teleport himself to the lands of the above and twist the mortals' wishes."_

Well this was just great. Kaïra was being dragged into a quest where she might have to face a god who wanted revenge on all the other gods in the universe. " _And the sickle spear in all of this?_ " she asked.

" _Rumors have been going on through six centuries that Jareth somehow managed to steal Laevateinn and keep it among his possessions in the Underground_." Thrud made an uneasy face. " _It would make sense that he did, because he is after all a dark, evil, ghastly trickster. That's why my brothers, my sister, and I wanted to join you on this quest: we want him to pay back for what he did to the house of Odin. And trust me on those words, Kaïra: even if this might turn out to be the most dangerous thing we've ever done in our lives, you would be remembered for going down there and defeating him. Imagine that."_

Kaïra tried to picture the scenario, and in a way, she could: suppose she did come back alive and successful. Maybe she'd find her place among the gods for defeating Jareth. Maybe, just maybe, this could be her own proof that the young Fitzgerald Denada Cortés had a great patron.

" _So, how do we go to the Underground?_ " Kaïra asked determinately.


	5. Finding The Solution

FACING DESTINY

Finding The Solution

"Curses! Where the heck did I put that mirror?" Fidget grumbled to himself as he scavenged through his belongings in Theresa's basement. The first thing he did once he woke this morning was to go down to the basement- Theresa had been kind enough to let Fidget move his vault into her basement; she hardly kept anything down there- and look for the mirror that his old mentor, Cora, had given to him. He needed that mirror to help him find an answer on how to get rid of the eternal immortality that the Elixir of Nine Lives had cursed him with. Once he got rid of that immortality, he could finally take the first step in his increasing relationship with Theresa.

"Looking for something?" A voice behind his back made him yelp in fright and nearly fall into a case of lamps. He turned to see Theresa in a blue night robe that barely covered the white, knee-reaching nightgown that she wore, her golden hair slightly brushed, and her green eyes looking at him while the uneasy Batrishan blushed at the sight of her.

"Uh...I...Eh...Good morning?" he stuttered. "H...How did you manage to get in?"

"I just walked through the door," Theresa shrugged. "You know, I can easily hear you making noises from the basement while I was half-asleep in my room two levels up."

"Sorry," Fidget said in an apologizing tone. "I didn't mean to wake you up. And...Yeah, I am looking for something. Something that will help me get rid of the Elixir of Nine Lives."

That really got Theresa's attention and the two began to look through Fidget's stuff. "So what's the object you specifically need, Fitzgerald?"

"Look for a silver hand mirror with carvings of hearts and vines on it," he said while he dug through a pile of scrolls.

"You mean like this one?" Theresa held up the mirror in question, making the gleeful Batrishan snatch it out of her hands and hold it in the air.

"Triumph!" he said. "All I have to do is ask for the cure I seek! Thank you Cor..." He stopped himself before saying the full name of his old mentor. Sadness suddenly began to fill him. "Oh."

"Fitzgerald? What's wrong?" Theresa sat next to Fidget on a treasure chest while he looked at his reflection with a melancholy she had never seen before coming from her friend.

"The mirror...My mentor Cora gave it to me as a birthday gift when I served her as her apprentice. I..." the Batrishan sighed. "I can't believe I forgot. My birthday -my _actual_ birthday- is in twelve days. I'll be 300 years old very soon."

"Is that day a bad reminder for you?" Theresa asked quietly.

"Honestly? I don't know. My actual birthday is just a reminder for me that I never knew my birth parents; they must have died during the Batrishan Genocide. When my foster parents found and adopted me at St. Alejandro's Chapel, it was a week after my birth. They knew I was a week old when they found me, but they chose to not have me dwell on my past..."

"So they made your adoption date your birthday," Theresa concluded.

"Yeah." Fidget sighed. "I wonder what they'd think of me now and of the life I wasted for nothing." He bent his head down until he felt Theresa's hand cupping his cheek and pulling it up so that his eyes could meet hers.

"They'd want you to choose the path and life you want to live," Theresa told him. "They'd want you to be happy..."

"You sound like my foster mother when she was on her deathbed," Fidget said. He pulled away from her touch and got up. "Don't tell me you're about to die!"

"What? No! Fitzgerald, I didn't mean it _that_ way!" Theresa exclaimed before eventually sighing. "Let's just find the cure for the Elixir, OK?"

"Works for me." Fidget held up the mirror. "Show me the cure that I seek." They watched as a silvery haze spun within the mirror's glass until it revealed a black book with a red star within a red circle on the cover. The book had a title on it.

"' _Curses and Cures Encyclopedia And Almanac'_ ," Fidget read the title out loud. "Quite catchy."

"Where's the book?" Theresa asked.

"Show me the book I seek," Fidget told the mirror, which gave its usual age and revealed an old, tiny cabinet with lotus designs on it. This made the Batrishan grumble. "This is what I dislike about the mirror! It can never give me specific details!"

"Hang on, Fitzgerald! I recognize that cabinet...Yes! I...I saw it back in Mr. Gold's Pawnshop!"

"Why must everything be at his place?" the Batrishan frowned.

"The Golds are out every Saturdays," Theresa said. "I can sneak in and grab the book..."

"Time out. Isn't that risky and aren't you supposed to teach today?"

"Today's Saturday. School's closed. But you make a point: taking a book away would be too obvious. I'll just rip out the necessary pages."

"Maybe I should go instead. It could be dangerous..."

"Says the Batrishan who came back to my house all bleeding from trying to cross the townline." Theresa shook her head. "Sorry Fitzgerald, but you're grounded. I'll get the pages."

" _Are you kidding me_?" Fidget exclaimed. "I'm getting grounded? At the age of 300?"

"You're still 299, and yes, because you're in _my_ house." Theresa chuckled as they went back upstairs once Fidget put away the mirror. "Don't worry, Fitzgerald. Everything is going to be fine and we'll have the cure. You'll be able to finally have a life."

"Yes, but...mmm." Fidget got cut off by Theresa kissing him. The thing was that, unlike the usual friendly, yet caring pecks that she usually gave him on the cheeks, this was actually a kiss on the lips. The strawberry taste of Theresa's soft lips was so sweet to him that it sent the Batrishan an old, warm feeling filling his soul that he'd never expected to find again after...well...Isabella.

Fidget didn't want the kiss to end when he began to feel Theresa attempting to break it off, so he put his hands on her waist in order to pull her closer and deepen their little exchange. The young woman let out a small moan the more they kissed until they eventually had to stop and breathe.

"So much for making you calm down," Theresa gave a small chuckle. Her hands were placed on his chest, letting her feel it vibrate with heartbeats.

"You and your magic touch." They both chuckled until they eventually split up to get back to their initial business.


	6. Searching & Breaking

FACING DESTINY

Searching & Breaking

"Regina and I managed to analyze the fairy dust that we found inside the breached vault," Periwinkle told Emma during a meeting at the sheriff's station.

"You found fairy dust on the crime scene?" David frowned.

"You'd be surprised, but there's a diversity of existing fairy dust. There's dust made out of diamonds that most of our species use for magical purposes, then there's dark fairy dust used for turning people into bugs, and then there's _this_." The frost fairy held out a small bottle full of dust in it. It was quite an interesting dust, for it looked like the mineral was coal gray but emitted blue twinkling of magic. "Fairy body dust."

"Fairies have body dust?" Emma arched her eyebrow.

"You'd be surprised, but fairy skin is almost like snake skin," Hermia said. She was sitting on the couch, flipping through a book. "For fairies, shedding skin is actually shedding dust off our skins. The dust is quite invisible to the human eye..."

Emma made a small disgusted face. "That's kinda gross."

"Tell me about it," Bartok groaned. "Most of the dust I had to sweep off the floor of my house came from my wife and my daughter." He stopped himself when Periwinkle gave him a sharp glare.

"Anyway, we then analyzed the dust," Regina continued the subject. "And it turns out that whichever fairy broke into the vault and stole the scroll that was guarded was a dark fairy."

Emma tensed. There were only two dark fairies in Storybrooke: Maleficent and her daughter, Lily Page. So far, these two have done no mischief in Storybrooke, so why would they try to steal something from the Storybrooke nuns?

As if she knew what Emma was thinking, Hermia asked her mother: "Mom, how old is the dust?"

"What do you mean?" Periwinkle asked confused.

"Maleficent and Lily are the only dark fairies we know of in this town. Suppose some other fairy came to town? Maybe younger or more experienced?"

"Hermia, you are quite clever!" Bartok told his daughter as he patted her on the shoulder.

 _Ten minutes later_

Emma and Regina were sitting on the couch of the living room in Maleficent and Lily's chalet while Periwinkle held the bottle to Lily. The latter gave a quick glance at her mother, who gave her a look that said 'Go ahead'. Lily took a deep breath and grabbed the bottle. A deep light of red began to appear in it like a flaming fire.

"The dust reacted to your contact," Periwinkle concluded. "Whichever dark fairy this dust belongs to is related to you. Quite a young fairy, judging by how old the dust's genetic code is."

"Romana," Lily gasped.

"What?"

"Romana," Lily gasped, her voice rising with sudden hope. She rushed towards Maleficent to show her the bottle. "Romana might be here! Romana might be in Storybrooke!"

Maleficent took a glance at the bottle before touching it and causing the red light to deepen in color. "Can this be true?" she questioned Regina.

"Oddly, this is beyond my judgment," Regina said in equal disbelief.

"Will somebody explain to me what is going on here?" Periwinkle held her hands in the air.

"Sorry," Emma said. "About two months before Rosetta's accidental encounter with Tristan and the Canterbury pilgrims, we had a...visitor from a different realm. The Fairy Queen Marianne."

"Of the Fae Realm?" Periwinkle's eyes widened.

"The point is," Regina said flatly, "that during that time, she was amnesiac, and while we were trying to help her get her memories back and find a portal back home for her, Lily here was trying to get some help searching her missing daughter, Romana."

"You have a daughter?" The frost fairy looked at Lily, who was beginning to cry.

"My boyfriend and I had to break up when our daughter was a baby because his folks didn't appreciate our relationship," she said. "Even after he took her under his custody, we still kept in touch through letters. But then...when Romana might have been six, he stopped contacting. I tried calling his folks and they said that he was murdered and that Romana was spirited away."

"Where did this happen?"

"Cuba?"

Periwinkle paced around the room while the other women watched her think.

"A six-year-old child can't just _disappear_ like that into thin air," she said. "No. Not unless..." Her voice trailed off.

"Not unless what?" Emma frowned.

"Not unless you were the one person I can think of capable of stealing children," Periwinkle only said.

 _Meanwhile_

Theresa's fist untightened itself, causing the doorknob of the Golds' pawnshop to unlock and the door to open in front of her. Sometimes, she was just _too_ proud of her magic.

Now all she needed to do was find the lotus-designed cabinet. Fortunately, as soon as she stepped into the pawnshop, she spotted the tiny cabinet, which was placed right underneath some sort of looking glass and between two different umbrella stacks. It was so well placed that you could have easily missed it.

Theresa walked towards it; she needed to crouch in order to have a better look at it. Much to her surprise, what appeared to be a door was nothing but a wooden carving. It wouldn't open. Theresa gave out a groan until she noticed something about the lotus designs that were in front of her: twelve lotuses, with vines twisting with one another, as if to form a clock.

"No, this would be too easy," she said out loud. Her hand trailed towards the lotus that would have replaced the eight on a clock. She pressed down on the flower twice and the wooden vines began to twist and move like gears in an actual clock until the door carving popped open, revealing the black book she was looking for. Without a hesitation, she grabbed it and flipped through its first pages, noticed the alphabetical order of the curses accompanied by their cures, and went straight towards the 'E' section, where she found the five pages that discussed the Elixir of Nine Lives and its cure.

"Bingo!" she exclaimed in triumph. She tore the pages off the book and stuffed them into her black structured purse.

"HEY!"

Theresa jumped in surprise and saw that Belle Gold had entered the pawnshop.

"What are you doing in my pawnshop?" Belle demanded.

"Technically, it's your husband's," Theresa retorted as she got up, "and if you dare tell anyone that I came here, I'll technically cast a spell on you."

"You're a witch?" Belle asked.

Theresa rolled her eyes. "I broke in your shop, which was locked, I opened a cabinet that can only be opened by someone who experienced dark magic, I'm taking pages from a book of spells, and now I'm threatening to cast a spell on you. Isn't it obvious that I'm a witch?"

Belle frowned at the young woman's confession until she noticed the magenta streak in her golden hair and gasped: "Kaïra Lokisia? Is...is that you?"

Theresa's body froze at the mention of the name she didn't expect to hear after several years. She just cast a freezing spell on Belle, taking the opportunity to put the book back in its place, shut the cabinet, and go back to the other woman in order to cast a memory spell before unfreezing her.

"What am I doing here again? Oh, right! Rumple forgot the picnic blanket in his office?" She then spotted Theresa. "I'm sorry, but the pawnshop is closed today. Did you need something?"

"Well...I saw your door being open and I was kind of hoping that you could give me suggestions for 1980s music for romantic evenings?" Theresa lied. _Good grief,_ she thought. _I need to be more creative these days._

"Oh," Belle said. "Well...some of the songs that my husband and I enjoy listening to during dates to include 'As The World Falls Down' and 'Within You' by David Bowie."

"From the 'Labyrinth' movie?" Theresa's face nearly brightened. "I remember seeing it as a kid with my dad when we spent time together."

"Then I'm sure these will work for your romantic evening," Belle smiled. "Have a good day."

"Thank you." Theresa nodded before heading out the door and the pawnshop, her hand clutching the purse that held the pages she stole and her mind wondering at the name Belle had mentioned.

"What did _she_ do this time?" she muttered to herself.


	7. Jareth

FACING DESTINY

Jareth

 _Flashback:_ _The Underground, year 1758_

" ** _OUT OF MY SIGHT, YOU BUMBLING IDIOTS!_**

Screams were heard coming from small, grotesque goblin soldiers as their master Jareth blasted them magical energy blasts The creatures ran for their lives out of the dark throneroom, leaving their master to clench his fists in frustration.

By the time movies were to be made, people would have a hard time believing that the real Jareth, ruler of the Underground, looked _nothing_ like the David Bowie depiction. His facial features looked like a hybrid of a hideous demon and a handsome angel, his black hair flowed out of his hair like deadly mist, his skin was sick colored, his nails sharper than shark teeth, and his black, ragged kingly clothes made him look like a monster. The most disturbing part about his appearance was his eyes: the white was instead golden and his irises were crimson red.

" ** _Curse those gods for locking me up in this ghastly kingdom, leaving me to wait for any pathetic mortal to wish their child away so that I may feed on the latter's growing essence_** ," muttered Jareth. A goblin hag came to serve him a glass of wine, but the angry god was too preoccupied with his angry thoughts to notice her. " ** _Why on earth do I even bother myself with dumb goblins? They can't even find me the baby I was looking for specifically for a year now!_** "

"Drink, Your Majesty?" the goblin hag asked meekly as she presented the wine glass to her ruler, who only looked at it with disgust. He grabbed the glass and sent it flying to the nearest granite wall, causing glass shard and wine puddles to fill the floor and stain the carpet.

" ** _Do I have to assume that there is no more essence left for me to feast on?_** " he demanded his slave, causing the goblin hag to kneel in fright.

"Please ...have mercy, Your Highness," she stammered. "I...I only thought you could use for a small refreshment..."

" ** _And you bring me wine while you know I prefer essence,_** _especially_ _ **since it's the only thing I can consume ever since the gods have forbidden me of ambrosia and nectar during my exile? Get me some essence!**_ "

"Right away...Your Highness!" The slave instantly ran out of the throneroom, leaving Jareth to rub his temple in frustration. He wished he didn't have to wait until some child was wished away in order to claim it, keep it as one of his slaves (usually it meant turning it the child into a goblin), and consuming that child's essence as he or she grew up until their bodies eventually shriveled into dust. If only he could obtain _godly_ essence instead. He could obtain the immortality he needed to stop using child essence and get a sweet revenge on the gods who locked him up here. The only issue was that he needed to force a god onto the altar in order to possess the godly essence, and it's not like any goddess would just come to his castle and beg him to make her his.

A goblin soldier entered the throneroom and bowed to Jareth. "Pardon me, your Highness, but we have a situation."

" ** _Don't tell me we're out of essence_** ," Jareth said in a dangerous tone.

"Actually, I was going to say that we might have some intruders right outside the Labyrinth."

" ** _The Labyrinth_**?" Jareth frowned at the mention of the maze that surrounded his castle like a giant fortress in the wasteland that formed the Underground. " ** _What kind of mortal is stupid enough to think that he or she can solve my maze?_** "

"Actually, the intruders might be gods."

 _Gods?_

That got Jareth's attention. Ever since he was exiled, gods of any of the sort were strictly forbidden to enter the Underground. So why the sudden change?

The evil god got up from his throne and walked towards the center of the room, where he held out his hands and began to form a giant, floating crystal ball, his favorite magical specialty. He placed his hands on the crystal and summoned it to show what the soldier was referring to. An image of a group of five youngsters, most likely in their late teenage years, who were making their way to the entrance of the Labyrinth, appeared.

"It's them," the goblin soldier pointed out.

" ** _I can feel their godly essence...so young_** ," Jareth said while making deep breaths. He then made a disgusted face when he saw four of the youngsters, two boys and two girls, all with blonde hair, blue eyes, and Asgardian armor. He groaned: " ** _Oh don't tell me that Thor sent his four kids down here just to torment me!_** "

"Shall we instantly have them dumped into the Bog Of Eternal Stench, Your Highness?" the guard asked. Jareth opened his mouth to say 'please do', but stopped himself when he saw the fifth youngster. He zoomed in the crystal's image until he could have a closer look.

The fifth member was a young girl, most likely sixteen like the other four. Her skin was paler than those of the other four, and unlike them, she had brown hair with a magenta streak on the right side that went all the way down her hourglass figure, which was hardly contained by the black-and-blue Asgardian uniform she was wearing. She had no makeup to go with her rosy lips and swirly green eyes. The goblin soldier was rather surprised to see his master drooling at the sight of the girl, especially when he went deeper into staring at her perfectly plump chest, smooth-looking neck, and well-proportioned legs.

" ** _Who...is..._** _she_ _ **?**_ " Jareth asked in a tone that sounded hungrier than before.

"Was that a rhetorical question, your Highness?" the soldier asked while his master seemed to be getting weirder than ever. Jareth snapped his fingers, causing the crystal ball too disappear.

" ** _So, they want to get through my Labyrinth?_** " Jareth said wickedly as he turned towards the window. " ** _Well then, they can face the traps if they want to, but they must at least reach the Goblin City._** "

"And you'll want us to dispose of them once they make it?" the soldier asked.

" ** _Double check as they go through the Labyrinth to figure out their motives_** ," Jareth ordered the soldier. " ** _Then dispose of the blonde ones in any way you desire. But bring the lovely creature_** to me ** _! I must have her!_** "


	8. A Cup Of True Love

FACING DESTINY

A Cup Of True Love

"That's it?"

Fidget and Theresa were drinking coffee at the counter of Theresa's small kitchen while they examined the pages discussing the Elixir of Nine Lives and its cure.

"That's all you have to say?" Theresa frowned as she drank her cup of coffee. "We just found the simple solution to get rid of the Elixir and all you have to say is 'that's it'?"

"Theresa, I spent almost _three_ years trying to remake the Elixir just to get the missing drops I needed to fulfill nine lives," Fidget said. He rolled his eyes as he glanced at the paper over and over again. "Three annoying years and that was before I became Cora's apprentice. And now, I read _this_ for the cure." He cleared his throat and reread the paper. "'To cure oneself from the effects of the Elixir of Nine Lives, one must drink true love with the being he or she is willing to spend eternity with from the same cup at the same time.' They make it sound like we're trying to find ideas for matrimonial cup drinking!"

Theresa sighed. They knew it wasn't going to be easy, but they swore they'd put their best efforts to make sure that the Batrishan would dispose himself of his eternal immortality so that he and Theresa could have a future together. A future that would last until they both died together, but it was worth it.

"I may not know about drinking true love, but I do know about a cup we can use." She walked towards a glass cabinet with a wooden frame that hung just above the sink. You could see that the inside only had two chalices in them. Theresa unlocked the cabinet with her magic and cautiously placed them on the counter. Fidget looked curiously at the chalices, which turned out to be made of pure crystal with impressive carvings of oak leaves, branches, and dancing spirits.

"Lovely chalices," the Batrishan commented.

"These were my parents' wedding chalices," Theresa explained. "My maternal grandmother created them as a wedding gift for my mother by using one giant crystal hidden at the heart of a mountain and her magic to split the crystal in half and carve it into two chalices..."

"'Drink from the same cup at the same time'!" Fidget snapped his fingers in realization. "Theresa, thank your grandmother!" He reached to carefully touch the chalice closest to him. "Now, concerning true love..."

 _Darkness consuming him._

 _The Crystal Chalices imprisoning his despaired patroness, Kaïra Lokisia._

 _The heroes of Storybrooke running through a maze while an evil laugh echoed above them._

 _A dragon morphing into a girl with her exposed chest covered by a tattoo of the Dark One's dagger._

 _Storybrooke shaking and shrouded by shadows as a black crown tightened itself on Fidget's head._

"AAH!" Fidget yelped. His jump caused his peg leg to make him trip and fall harshly on the wooden floor

"FITZGERALD!"

After ensuring that she secured the chalices back in the cabinet, Theresa rushed to kneel on the floor and help Fidget get up. "Fitzgerald, what's wrong?"

"Ugh..." He rubbed his head. "The...the chalices. I don't know why, but as soon as I touched one of those Crystal Chalices and I saw strange things!" He told Theresa of each vision he saw in chronological order.

"Two visions really disturbed me the most," he told Theresa. "The first one was of my patroness..."

"Kaïra Lokisia, the Norse ruler of the dead lying between honor and dishonor," Theresa said indifferently. "Not exactly one of my favorite gods in general."

"Understandable. Even Xibalba and La Muerte, the Aztec gods of death, don't like her either. But in my vision, she wasn't the way I usually saw her: proud, bold, and authorative. She had the tendency of bursting into my life without letting me know and acting like some sort of creepy guardian angel who put me in front of a human chapel when I was barely a few weeks old."

"Wait. _She_ was the one who dropped you off?" Theresa's tone sounded very annoyed, as if she was familiar with such antics, but the Batrishan failed to notice such a thing.

"Nevertheless, I owe her for 'guarding me' my entire life. If she's in trouble, I...I'll have to help her. And as for the second vision, which terrified me the most, was the last one."

"The one of you getting a crown on your head?" Theresa frowned. "You wouldn't be the first one to be interested in becoming royalty..."

"It's not the royalty but the _power_ of a royal that scared me," Fidget said. His eyes darted off as if to recall an old memory. "At one point during my apprenticeship, Cora suggested that she made me her Crown Prince for the throne of Wonderland."

Theresa's eyes widened. "You would have been a prince?"

"Well I would have already been one if I had married my ex before the codfish came in," Fidget grumbled before returning back to the topic. "Anyway, I declined Cora's offer and told her that while I was grateful for her tutoring and flattered by her proposition, my main priority in life was to get my revenge on the one who wronged me. And she said that while seeking revenge to correct an unjust act was a noble act, it wouldn't...complete me. She said: ' _Suppose you_ _ **do**_ _get your revenge, hum? Suppose you manage to get back at the pirate, crush his heart, watch his blood spill, and avenge your dead beloved ones. What will you do then, once your lifelong goal is achieved? Believe me, those you have craved vengeance for ages end up falling for something far more tempting and soul-consuming. That's what eventually took over me once I realized I wanted more than just get back at one puny king for humiliating me, the daughter of a miller._ _ **Power**_ _is what got to me. Mark my words, Fidget: if revenge doesn't consume you for the rest of your life, then hunger for power will_.'

"You know me, Theresa. I spent my life dedicated for revenge and then my patroness tells me it wasn't worth it. Everything gone down the drain except my eternal immortality and all those powers I obtained for heavy prices. Would they lead me to such a fate?"

Armor piercing question indeed. If Fidget hadn't been consumed by his ancient thirst for revenge on Killian Jones, than what was the probability that all the powers he had within him would lead the Batrishan for an even bigger proportion? Almost every villain that the citizens of Storybrooke had to deal with had mostly been obsessed by power. It had been the case of all the Dark Ones, including Rumplestiltskin. It happened with Cora and her two daughters, the Evil Queen and the Wicked Witch. The Queens of Darkness. Peter Pan. All of them had been consumed by power-hunger, which drove them to insanity, death, damnation, or painful redemption. Theresa feared the worst for her relationship with the Batrishan.

She held him by the hands and helped him get up. "We'll find an eventual solution. We'll both be satisfied." The words came out of her mouth very calmly and reassuringly.

Fidget chuckled. "You sound like my ex-fiancée, except less giddy."

"Oh." Theresa blushed.

"And you look like her."

His words had gone serious that they almost frightened Theresa. She watched as he held his right index finger up and showed a golden ring with an emerald gem on it. That ring was the only piece of jewelry the Batrishan kept on him at all times aside from his birth medallion.

His betrothal ring from his old engagement to the Princess Isabella of Aldorada.

"Did you know that in Aldorada, betrothal rings also work as lockets?" Fidget put his fingers on the emerald and turned it three times, causing it to pop open and reveal its inside: a traditional, heart-shape locket interior, accompanied by an old fashioned painted picture of a young woman in Renaissance regal attire. But the craziest part?

Add Theresa's magenta streak and pale skin to the picture and Princess Isabella would have been her identical twin sister.

"The very first thing that shocked me about you when we first met on the day I moved into my cottage? You look and act just like my ex-fiancée, who died 283 years ago." He twisted the emerald back shut and crossed his arms. "Any explanation?"

"I swear on the River Styx that I don't know what this is about!" Theresa protested. "Fitzgerald, how could I...mmm."

Fidget didn't let her finish. Instead, he leaned in and kissed Theresa the same way she made him shut up earlier today. A large wave of warmth went through them as he pulled her closer to him and pressed his lips onto hers even harder, tasting every inch. The blonde woman moaned with pleasure that came from both her body and soul.

"I see her in you," the Batrishan said after he broke off the kiss. Their foreheads were pressed onto one another's while their mouths tried grabbing for more air. "Everything that she had for me...her love, her faith, her loyalty..." He gave a small chuckle. "She was also the first human to have liked me despite my beastly appearance."

"Can you blame her?" Theresa placed a hand behind his notched ear and caressed its skin, making the bat ears twitch and their owner fidget with pleasure. "You know, I think I understand now why you're nicknamed 'Fidget the Bat'," she grinned as she used both of her hands to caress the back of his ears and make the Batrishan react like a dog enjoying belly rubs.

"Yeah, I fidgeted a lot when I was an infant. The nickname was given by my parents..."

Theresa didn't see this coming. She didn't expect the Batrishan to jump at her and pin her to the ground, his body lying on top of hers. Her chest heaved underneath his as he bent down and whispered in her ear: "Good seduction, sweetheart, but I don't fall that easily."

Shivers went down the woman's spine as his lips went down her earlobe and her neck, going through a slow process of kisses ranging from soft to hungry. He made a few breaks to nib at Theresa's neck with his teeth, which made her gasp when she felt the small pain hit her like mosquito bites and moan with pleasure as she felt his tongue lick off the small amounts of blood leaking from her wound.

"Fitzgerald?" Theresa asked when she began to feel the Batrishan's hand tugging the fabric of her black shirt.

"Yes?" He pulled away from his small, lustful feast and stared into the green eyes of his newest treasure.

"Not in the kitchen, please." She waved her finger to indicate the different areas in the kitchen that could hold potentially dangerous utensils.

"Oh. Sorry." With a wave of his hand and a purple smoke of magic, he transported the two of them from the kitchen to the guest room where Fidget was staying upstairs. They were still in the same initial position, Fidget pinning Theresa, only on the bed.

They leaned in and shared another kiss, pressing harder in order to increase the passion. Theresa wrapped her arms over his shoulders as they kissed while the Batrishan, in the meantime, moved his hands onto the black shirt she was wearing and found the buttons he needed to unbutton. In less than a few seconds, the shirt fell from the bed, eventually followed by her dark blue pants and shoes, leaving the blonde woman in nothing but her black strapless bra and thong. It wasn't the first time that Fidget dealt with a pretty woman who tempted him and wanted him to ravish. Back in the old days, he would have just scoffed and told them to join a convent. But with Theresa...She was a dazzling beauty.

After Fidget was done ogling her, he went back to the current matter and proceeded to take off his own clothing and toss it to the floor until he was only in his boxers. Theresa blushed and equally ogled at the sight of the slender body shape and muscled limbs that the crippled Batrishan had. Without his usually pants covering him, Fidget's remaining leg looked more muscular than one would have imagined.

"You're...more handsome than I imagined," she gasped as she reached to stroke his bare chest, making the Batrishan moan. He then pulled her into another kiss, which increased in heated passion due to their exposed skins pressed onto one another.

Once their romantic embrace was done, Fidget went back to their paused process of consummating love by going back to kissing her neck and down the rest of her body. He took some time to enjoy her collarbone with his lips while his hands massaged her back and waist. Theresa moaned and gasped in pleasure, which made it longer and difficult for her to unclasp her bra, but she eventually made it and gave her lover the next sweet treats on the list. He didn't hesitate once he saw her average, yet perfectly plump breasts topped by dark rose pink-colored nipples exposed before him; the Batrishan brought his lips onto each breast one at a time and lecherously licked the nipples, spending about five minutes to enjoy each of them while Theresa's pleasure moans increased at the milk-desiring licks and the hands that eventually brought down her thong and began to caress the woman's hips and legs.

Their intimacy continued with the caresses, body kissing (with quite a lick in the navels), and occasional breaks to reclaim each other's lips. Finally, the ultimate moment came.

Fidget removed his boxers. He took a deep breath as he began to separate Theresa's leg in order to find the entrance he was looking for.

"I swear on the River Styx that I won't harm you," he told Theresa.

"Don't rush it, then," she said. "I don't want you to die at the first time."

The Batrishan nodded. As promised, he slowly put his organ into her wet entrance and gently pushed his way into it. Heat raced through them in the groins and Theresa groaned as she began to feel pain, her hands clutching onto the bed sheets. She slightly felt better when Fidget's hands tried massaging her thighs for comfort as he continued to go deeper into her until he reached the breaking point and she began to cry.

Fearing to injure her, Fidget instantly pulled himself out of her, which briefly made her scream for a bit.

"Theresa! I didn't hurt you...did I?" He panted from the 'push-up' he went through and asked his equally panting lover with concern.

"I'm fine," she stammered. "I don't know if it's a first-timer thing, but...I'm tired."

Fidget nodded and gave her a quick kiss before removing the bed sheets and placing Theresa in a comfortable position before lying by her side and pulling up the covers. "I'll stay with you."

"Are you sure we'll be able to sleep, Fitzgerald?" Theresa's eyelids were beginning to blink as she gently stroke the back of Fidget's folded wings. "It's only three in the afternoon and we still have to find the rest of the cure..."

"I'm sure it can...wait," the Batrishan said as his own eyes began to blink and get sleepy as well. "After all, the world's not going to end tomorrow." They both collapsed into slumber, their bodies close to one another, and their minds into soft dreams while the sun was still shining outside in Storybrooke.


	9. Return of the Masked Girl

FACING DESTINY

Return of the Masked Girl

"Eleven more days until the end of the world as we know it," Rosetta mumbled to herself as she jot down some notes and sketches on the sketchbook she kept with her ever since she first came to Storybrooke and not the usual parchment that the Aztec gods had expected her to write every detail about the story-of-everybody's-life.

She had gone for a morning walk at the beach by herself with Ared (her father still went under papa wolf protection by having at least one of his jackal sons watch over her) and was now sharing her disturbing visions to her sketchbook while Ared kept an eye on her.

"OH, GO AWAY, ARED!" she barked at him. "I DON'T CARE IF DADDY CURSES ME IN THE NEXT LIFE, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" Ever since her trip with the pilgrims, Rosetta had lost most of her childish innocent and acted quite abrasively lately. She managed to make Ared whimper and race away from the beach and into the road that they usually took to go back home.

" _After three centuries, the sun will darken again. From the underground the maze shall rise,_ " Rosetta recited the prophecy that Kaa had told her when she encountered her visionary peers Hak and Ah, the two halves that formed the embodiment of Kaa, the all-knowing snake. " _From his crown, the Prince of Darkness' evil will terrorize. The cursed dagger will bond with the dragon, who seeks her enslaver's demise and the loyalty of her heir. The worlds' town will face the agony as darkness, evil, and malevolence rule the air."_ She wrote down the prophecy in her sketchbook. "Then Fidget has visions related to the prophecy..."

"Say what now?"

"GAH!"

Rosetta jumped when she saw a familiar person from her travels sitting right next to her. The girl she had encountered at the ruins of the Batrishan Palace hadn't been so quiet, Rosetta would have mistaken her breathing for the wind.

"Seriously, what is with you and giving me heart attacks?" Rosetta got up and glared at the Masked Girl. "And...what the heck are you wearing?"

The first and last time the two girls had encountered one another, the Masked Girl was wearing medieval robes and a Cuban Devil mask that covered her entire face, which had made her look like a demonic nun. But now she was wearing some sort of black catsuit with the zipper opened just enough to reveal her cleavage, the fabric so tight that her adolescent curves could not be concealed (and interestingly, the folds were able to look like dragons), and her Cuban Devil mask had been replaced by those masks a woman would wear at a Venetian masquerade ball. If Rosetta hadn't been decent enough to know that all those movie adaptations about her maternal grandmother, the Black Widow, were not based on reality, she would have thought that the Masked Girl was auditioning to play the Black Widow's role in the first IRON MAN movie.

"Oh, you mean this?" The Masked Girl's lips (now visible) were covered in ebony black lipstick and smirking as she showed off in diva poses her new outfit. "I thought I'd get myself a bad makeover. After all, I'll be getting a new sense of fashion once the prophecy has passed."

"I still can't believe it's all coming together in just a matter of eleven days," Rosetta said. "Anyway, how's your boss doing?"

The Masked Girl grimaced, her teeth gritting and her eyes, still hidden beneath her mask, burning at the mention of her master. "That creep has a brain as empty as a worthless crystal ball! To think that I had to endure almost eight years of my life at his servitude, listening to him babble and plot for his revenge, his obsession at getting his son back, and the price he wants the most...Pale Face."

"Yeah, Pale Face really got his attention when she visited his hometown the first time."

"Ugh, tell me about it!" The Masked Girl groaned. "Hollywood and its lies about his crush on a human girl! If they new how the Evil One truly treats his paramours, they would have cancelled the movie! The Evil One practically turned the room he molested Pale Face in into a shrine that plans to turn into a...matrimonial bedchamber once he's forced her into the altar."

"Is that part really gonna come true?" Rosetta asked with concern. "The part of Pale Face getting...You know?"

"Is this about those 'visions' that you were mumbling about?" Rosetta nodded and watched as the Masked Girl waved her hand, summoning a cloud of dark crystal colored smoke that created a couple chairs, a table, and a tea set. "Let's talk about it..."

 _Meanwhile, barely a few feet from here_

Emma and Regina were following Periwinkle and Hermia as they scouted the area, trying to find more clues about the location of the dark fairy Romana who broke into the fairies' hidden vault.

"There's still one thing I don't get," Regina said as the women walked.

"What is it?" Emma looked at her.

"The dark fairy who broke into the vault and took the scroll was your friend Lily's daughter, who somehow disappeared from the face of the Earth as a six-year-old when her father was murdered," Regina told her. "If she's here in Storybrooke, why is she stealing something involving a prophecy about the end of the world rather than searching for the only relatives she has?"

"Maybe she gave up?" Emma suggested. "That's what happened to me at first when I was in the foster system and became a bounty hunter. I stopped searching for clues of my real parents and began to accept that they might have abandoned me until Henry found me..."

"I don't think so." Emma and Regina looked at Periwinkle, who walked ahead of them and used the dark fairy body dust to locate any possible remnants of the fairy. "No matter what kind of fairy you are, good, evil, the cursing kind, the wish-granting, the fairy godmother or guardian or dark fairy, childcare and maternal love are natural characteristics that can't be revoked. Even if a dark fairy is evil, she still must love the children she bears and raise them while they cherish her love. But the only way a fairy can't care for her child and love it would be if the child was forcibly taken away from its parents."

"And you think the Evil One kidnapped Romana and is forcing her to do her bidding?" Hermia asked her mother. Periwinkle said nothing. Her spare hand grabbed her daughter's and held it tightly. "Mom?"

"If that bastard god thinks he can get away with one fairy's daughter, he'll have to think again if he wants to harm mine!" The words were so strong that Emma and Regina could have sworn hearing the trees shaking brutally and the summer breeze turning cold.

"Wait!" Hermia let go of her mother's hand and held out her Batrishan ears, listening very carefully. "I hear something. It's faint, but I'm positive somebody is at the beach nearby. Maybe it's Romana."

"Let's go check it out!" Emma said.

"We'll give you a lift." Without hearing a word of it, Periwinkle grabbed Emma and Hermia grabbed Regina and took flight.

"You're sure I'm not too heavy for you?" Regina asked Hermia loudly as they flew above the trees.

"Nah. My heritage as a descendant of Ashiva kind of gives superhuman strength."

The ladies flew for like five minutes in the air until they arrived by the beach. They hid behind some large beach rocks and cautiously spied on the people there.

"I see Rosetta with some sort of black dressed teenager," Hermia whispered. "Who is she? Romana?"

"Perhaps." Periwinkle analyzed the dark fairy body dust, which glowed a lot in its vial. "The body dust is reacting a lot, but there could be a possibility that it's just reacting to the presence of another dark fairy..."

"Still, what is Rosetta doing with a dark fairy?" Emma asked. Their whisperings got cut off when they heard Rosetta and the Masked Girl talking.

"This isn't good," the Masked Girl said to Rosetta as they finished their tea. "The eclipse isn't here yet and the Batrishan starts having visions related to the prophecy?"

"I don't think 'related' even fits," Rosetta told her associate (at least that's what the spying ladies assumed the Masked Girl was). "C'mon, I like saw what he saw and all it took him was to merely touch those chalices..."

"Chalices?" The Masked Girl leaned close enough to face Rosetta by nearly an inch. "What were those chalices made of?"

"Crystal."

"DAMN IT!" The Masked Girl got up her chair and paced around the sandy beach angrily. The ladies had to make sure they were still well hid and in a good position to listen even more. "This is a disaster! My boss can see through crystals balls or anything made of the same material! Anyone related to him has the same ability! If the Batrishan touched a crystal chalice and saw things through it, his touch could have triggered the blood link that connects him to his father, the Evil One!"

"Splendid," Rosetta muttered. "In other words, your boss could pop up at anytime and go like: 'Greetings, Storybrooke! Don't mind me, I just came to pick up my son and use him to reincarnate myself as the Dark One again in order to unleash epic chaos on your town and the universe as we know it! Have a nice day!'" Rosetta made a dramatic, farewell pose worthy of a conqueror as she finished her sentence. "You don't suppose he'll use that spell on him before the eclipse, do you?"

"Well he'll definetly make sure Nimue accepts his offering and takes his Batrishan son as an avatar. When he performs the bonding ritual and destroys his son's soul from within like a lethal parasite by the time the eclipse comes, he'll become the Dark One...permanently."

Emma and Regina stared at one another in shock while Periwinkle covered her daughter's mouth in order to keep her from screaming.

So that's what the Evil One was after.

He wanted to become the Dark One.

A god playing the avatar of the Dark One.

And to do that, the Evil One needed his son that hid among the Batrishans currently located in Storybrooke.

"But of course we aren't going to let your boss kill him, right?" Rosetta said.

"He won't die, but _you_ can't do it directly."

"Oh, c'mon! You can't be serious! Don't tell me it's because I'm a kid!"

"I'm a kid, too, you know, with a four to five age difference. But that's not why. Don't forget that my master granted _one_ sparing for you back in the Batrishan Sanctuary when I saved you from Darwin. And if he found out how...closely connected you and his son are, he could easily use you against his son, maybe even blackmail him to join his side by threatening to kill you."

Rosetta remained silent, her face clearly looking heartbroken. "But I can't just leave him out like bait! He's like a big brother to me!"

"I know, Rosetta," the Masked Girl said sincerely. "I understand how you feel, but it's too dangerous for you and him. I think he made a wise chose to let his recent bitter attitude alienate everyone surrounding him."

"Except my teacher."

"Teacher?" Regina mouthed at Emma, who shook her head to indicate that she had no idea what was going on.

"Teacher?" The Masked Girl asked.

"Yeah, my summer class teacher, Ms. Rogers. Aside from getting weird visions, Fidget has been sleeping with my teacher..."

This definetly did not hold the women any longer.

"FIDGET THE BAT IS THE EVIL ONE'S SON?" Regina got up and shouted at the startled Rosetta and Masked Girl.

"H...How long have you guys been spying on us?" Rosetta gasped as Emma and the frost fairies got up.

"How long _we_ 've been here?" Emma scowled at Rosetta. "How long were _you_ going to tell us that you knew Fidget was the Evil One's son all along?"

"And that you knew Romana Castro?" Hermia added.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Rosetta replied flatly.

"You can quit the charade, Rosetta." The Masked Girl removed her mask and let it drop on the sand. The ladies were shocked to see the true face that had been hiding beneath the mask: a younger, tanned, and prettier version of Lily's face, only with Cuban tanned skin and extremely dark eyes and hair that went down her waist.

"So I broke into the monastery in order to get my boss the scroll he wanted with further details of the prophecy," Romana said. "Big deal."

"Then what the heck are you doing, going one way to help him take over the world and go another way to tip off his plans to Rosetta?" Hermia pointed at Rosetta while speaking. "What's the sense in that?"

"Romana, listen..." Emma took a careful step forward .

"Don't bother, Emma Swan. I know what you're going to do to me," Romana scoffed. "Give me a brief story of your life, how we're not so different, and that my mother and grandmother are desperately looking for me. Spare me and yourself the waste of time, I won't fall for that classic."

Her comment was so stunning that Emma dropped her jaw in shock. "But..."

"Emma, it's pointless," Rosetta supported Romana. "She's like Fidget. Life wrecked by the Evil One, stripped away from your native people at a young age, taught and tormented by years of sufferings and evil. Romana could care less about her maternal family the same way Fidget doesn't give a damn about not being like his people."

"They at least deserve to know that she's still alive and in Storybrooke!" Periwinkle exclaimed.

"It wouldn't change a thing," Romana said. "Ensuring the prophecy's fulfillment for _my_ benefit and that my enslaver's blood is shed matters to me more than a pitiful family reunion."

"Rosetta." Regina turned to look at Rosetta. "How _could_ you _possibly_ let things go like this?"

"You're the daughter of heroes." Emma agreed. "Why..."

"I try to contribute with my visions and be heroic and what do I get? Grounded!" Rosetta spat. "I'm done helping anyone! I quit!"

Rosetta stormed away from the beach. "And you can tell my parents that I'm NOT coming back home!" She briefly stopped to give Romana a sincere glance. "By the way, thanks for the tea."

"No problem." Romana nodded before addressing the women who have been spying on them. " _Tan larga, inútil enemigos!_ We'll be seeing you when the worlds end!" Magical smoke then teleported the girls away from the beach, Rosetta in a cyan one and Romana in an obsidian black one, leaving Periwinkle, Hermia, Emma, and Regina alone on the beach.

"Well, the good news is that we now know that Romana's in Storybrooke and that it's Fidget the Evil One wants," Hermia said, trying to sound positive. "The bad news is how the heck do we tell the others?"


	10. Evil Hunger

FACING DESTINY

Evil Hunger

 _Flashback:_ _The Underground, year 1758_

The young gods were moving much faster than Jareth had anticipated, much to his delight and frustration. For his delight, the closer the youngsters got to the Goblin City, the faster he could get rid of Thor's spawn and get a hold of that lovely girl who was accompanying them. The Asgardians had barely spent an hour in the Labyrinth and they were already halfway towards their target, unaware that the Goblin King had been spying on them through his crystal ball from his throneroom, cursing at their quick improvement and drooling even further as he zoomed his view even further towards the brunette and her tantalizing cleavage.

Waiting and the fact that his servants didn't have enough time to set up the preparations that they needed for the arrival of their king's 'new queen', as Jareth had dubbed.

"Your Highness, I know that you enjoy watching your victims struggle within the Labyrinth," the goblin soldier from earlier asked when he went to check on Jareth, "but if waiting that long is torturing you, why not just drown the blondes into the Bog and take your future essence giver on the spot?"

" _ **Are you saying that you and the rest of the goblins are tired of feeding me essence?**_ " Jareth asked firmly. The goblin soldier gulped and nodded nervously. Fortunately, Jareth shrugged and slouched on his throne. " _ **I don't blame you. Drinking essence of children as they live and die was never my favorite beverage, especially when I have to consume as much as I can of it. But if I were to consume godly essence, especially those of a young goddess...I would never have to feed numerous times on a daily basis**_." He sighed. " _ **Then again, not watching my victims pass thirteen hours lost in my Labyrinth, it wouldn't be fun.**_ "

The goblin soldier understood what his master was going through. Then, an idea hit his head. "Your Highness, if I may, don't you have the ability to freeze the time and space of any area in the Labyrinth?"

" _ **Yes, but only from within. If I threw a crystal ball at a certain area in the Labyrinth, a dome would encircle the targeted area and anyone or anything trapped in it would be frozen in time while the normal time from the outside continued to move on. Only when the dome disappears can the spell be broken. What's your point?**_ "

"Suppose you threw a time freezing spell and trapped those young gods in a time freezing dome until the thirteen hours are out..."

" _ **And since only I can move in the dome unaffected...**_ " Jareth's eyes brightened as he got up from his throne. " _ **I'll have all the time in the world to have a little appetizer, and when the time comes, I'll tell those puny gods they failed and that, while four of them while drown in stench, one of them will stay here as my permanent companion!**_ " Jareth and the soldier chuckled. " _ **Once I have my body full of godly essence and a queen to lustfully feast on for eternity, remind me to promote you to advisor.**_ "

The goblin soldier bowed. Once he left the throneroom to check on the other servants' accomplished works, Jareth pulled out a crystal ball out of thin air and threw it out the window, watching as it landed somewhere in particular in the labyrinth.

 _Later_

Like stealing candy from a baby, Jareth disposed of the weapons of Thor's frozen children once he stepped into the dome. Purple auras were surrounding all the creatures and objects other than the Goblin King as they were frozen within the dome. It felt like walking in an exhibit of wax statues.

" _ **I should do this more often**_ ," he said out loud as he magically shrunk the sizes of the gods' weapons and put them in his pocket. He walked towards the main display he was looking for: the dazzling creature, being shielded by one of Thor's daughters from a hairy beast that had been attacking the group. Jareth pushed the beast and blonde aside and knelt beside the brunette. Drunkenness filled his soul.

" _ **You are far more beautiful than I ever imagined**_ ," he growled. His left hand caressed the crouching girl's skin, such soft skin, while his right hand touched her waist. Jareth wasn't too happy about the concealing Asgardian armor covering nearly every inch of her body that wasn't her hands or her head.

" _ **You could wear something better**_." With his bare hands, he managed to make the frozen limbs put the body into a sitting pose that was sexy to his eyes. Using the spell he had used earlier, Jareth aimed it at the young goddess' clothing and watched with pleasure as each inch of fabric or metal of the armor either shrunk or disappeared. His tongue was licking his lips when more of the pale skin and plump organs began to show. Finally, the spell stopped, and Jareth became hungrier than ever now that the young goddess was frozen in nothing but thong clothing that were so thin enough that he could have easily ripped them off himself and make her naked.

" _ **I SO know what I'll have you wear once I take you with me,**_ " Jareth whistled at the frozen goddess. The fear expression her face had from being attacked by the hairy beast would have been fitting if she knew that an evil, hungry god was now placing a hand on each breast and squeezing them. He moaned at the feeling of those plump mounds full of the presence of godly essence ready to explode out of her chest like an active volcano full of lava. Out of curiosity, he lifted the bra up and dropped his jaw when he saw those brown beauties of nipples shining to his eyes like pearls. He lecherously pinched each of them, imagining what it would be like to suck essence from her through these jewels.

" _ **I seriously wonder why Odin made a beauty like you a dramatically overdressed warrior rather than a luscious belly dancer**_ ," he told the frozen girl as his hands hugged her bare waist. Jareth leaned down and inhaled from her navel, which made him groan with pleasure: her odor was the scent of what it would be like if all the most fragrant flowers in the universe had merged together to create the most fragrant perfume for the most beautiful creature.

Jareth then went on to worshiping each of the plump buttocks that were shining from the dome's bright light. He growled and licked his pleasured lips as he groped those hips, letting his fingers savor the soft skin and feel the essence that moved as his hands played with the frozen butt, making it wiggle and bounce and making Jareth regret that he wasn't a wolf and couldn't just devour her on the spot. He sighed with relief as he stroke her down her legs and massaged her little feet.

" _ **Except for your poor sense of clothing, you are perfect**_!" Jareth declared once he was done and zapped her clothes back on. " _ **And I know just what I'm going to do!**_ " He spotted the spiritual clock that haunts every traveler who tried solving his Labyrinth and swirled his finger at it, making the time go faster until it reached ten minutes before the final hour. That was ten minutes enough for him to rush back to his castle to give more orders to his servants and to gather soldiers by the dome. A few seconds before the clock struck the thirteenth hour, Jareth made the dome disappear and its prisoners were unfrozen.

" _What just..._ " Magni began until he realized his sword was missing. The gods, except the brunette, were shocked to find their weapons suddenly gone.

" _ **SEIZE THEM!**_ " Jareth ordered his guards. The bulky goblins didn't blink and threw themselves at the youngsters, trapping their limbs and forcing them to face Jareth. While it took at least two goblins to hold each of Thor's children down, only the brunette was held back by one goblin.

" _ **So you've failed to reach my castle in less than thirteen hours**_ ," Jareth said smugly. He pointed at the hour on the clock.

" _You snake!_ " Thrud struggled to no avail to escape her captors' clutches. " _We still had twelve or eleven hours left! You sped up the time!_ "

" _ **Well of course! It's my kingdom, after all**_ ," Jareth laughed evilly. " _ **My kingdom, my rules.**_ "

" _Lord Jareth, we didn't mean to disturb you_ ," the brunette said. " _All we want is Laevateinn..._ "

" _ **Laevateinn**_?" Jareth paused at the mention of the sickle spear he had managed to steal from the Asgardian ages ago. He nearly forgot that he still had it stacked among his treasures within his vault and yet he had used it last year to create an earthquake upon a civilization he wanted to punish. " _ **Why would you want the sickle spear?**_ "

" _It belongs to the house of Odin!"_ Modi shouted.

" _ **SILENCE!**_ " Jareth's loud voice made the ground shake, the birds fly away, and the others whimper in fear. He approached the brunette and leaned in just enough for their faces to be separated by mere inches. The girl trembled, for she did not fail to see the discreet sniff his nostrils did as he stared into her green eyes. " _ **What's your name?**_ " He asked her.

" _Kaïra_ ," the young woman answered as best as she could.

" _ **Lovely name for a lovely beauty**_ ," Jareth commented while his hand got a hold of her chin and his fingers were slightly stroking her white skin. The children of Thor were as disgusted by the sight as Kaïra was. " _ **Now, I don't suppose you know who can truly wield a weapon like Laevateinn, am I correct?**_ "

" _Tricksters can,_ " Kaïra replied. She tried to yank her chin out of his hand, but he was much tougher than she was.

" _ **Fancy that, you did your homework**_ ," Jareth said impressively. " _ **Anyway, how were you five hoping on bringing back the sickle spear to Odin if none of you have the tricks to do so? One of you would have to be able to trick me at one of my own games in order for Laevateinn, but so far it seems like none of you have done so, right?**_ "

" _Only you would be crazy enough to cheat and ensure that we lose_ ," Torun snapped. " _Leave Kaïra alone and let us go_."

" _ **Sorry, I won't**_ ," Jareth said told her. " _ **Even if you had reached my castle, I wouldn't have given you the spear. I was planning on having you and your siblings killed in the first place. Honestly, I never liked Thor's children.**_ "

" _You want them dead?"_ Kaïra gasped in horror. " _W...What are you going to do to me_?"

Jareth grinned and snapped his fingers. The guard let go of Kaïra, who nearly fell face first on the floor if Jareth hadn't caught her. Her cheeks were blushing furiously as she felt his hand nearly touching her breasts' bottoms. " _Keep your hands to yourself!_ " She shouted at him and official lost her sense of respect towards the god.

" _ **Believe me, you'll be feeling them for the rest of your life**_ _,"_ Jared said. He yanked her up on her feet and forced her to stand next to him, trapping her in his chest and gripping her arm tightly. He then pointed at the guards holding Kaïra's peers captive. " _ **Drown them well into the Bog Of Eternal Stench and make sure that not even a blonde hair sticks out. As for me, I'll be escorting my new queen to her new home!**_ **"**

Kaïra's eyes widened when the words hit her harshly. " _NO! LET ME GO!_ "

" _ **Come along, my sweet pumpkin, time for us to head back to the castle!**_ " He pinned her wrists behind her back, gagging them with his right hand while his left hand roughly clawed onto her left buttock, forcing her to walk further if she didn't want to suffer more pain. The guards struggled to keep the blonde gods down until they finally came with the solution to knock them out and drag their bodies to the ground. But since the Bog was so far away, by the time they were halfway there when the sun sat, Jareth was dragging Kaïra into his throneroom, where he tossed her onto his throne.

" _What do you want from me?_ " Kaïra, now terrified, asked. " _I don't have anything you could possibly want!_ "

" **You** _ **are what I desire!**_ " The growling Jareth grabbed Kaïra by the shoulder, trapping her even further into his throne. " _ **After spending so many eras trapped in here, I am starving! Only godly essence can spare from eternal hunger if I force a god onto the altar. YOU are SO perfect!**_ "

" _You want me dead?"_ Kaïra choked out of her mouth while she failed to keep Jareth's hands off her armor. Soon the knots were untied and the armor pieces fell down to the ground, leaving Kaïra in the loose chainmail uniform that she had worn underneath her armor.

" _ **Oh, you won't die**_ ," Jareth snickered. His left hand stroke her cheek with deeper lust, causing her to shiver. " _ **When a powerful god like me forces a young goddess like yourself into marriage, he will be connected to her forever and can use her essence to live forever without having to feast on a daily basis the essences of mortals like have done with those of children. Once I'm connected to your essence, I will never hunger again!**_ "

" _But what will happen to me in all of this?_ "

" _ **Oh, you'll still be alive and healthy, and since I happen to have...deeper desires aside from your essence, you'll be serving as my daily 'snacks' before and after our marriage. Believe me, I'm awfully lonely ever since I was banished here. I'll be keeping you as my personal little wife...forever**_."

Kaïra trembled and sweated with fear. Jareth wasn't just going to trap her here forever because he wanted godly essence to live forever: he was going to keep her as his personal sex slave that he would tormented every day for his lecherous needs rather than his hunger issues.

Jareth moved away from Kaïra, giving her some space until he grabbed her by the wrist, and threw a crystal ball in the air. Soon, the setting changed into a room, rather similar to a dungeon cell, except the only pieces of furniture were a mahogany wardrobe and a fancy, gothic canopy bed with red and black silky sheets. Jareth swung Kaïra by the arm he held her and then threw the poor goddess onto the bed like a rag doll. He must have been good at aiming, because she landed butt first on the sheets and back on the pillows, giving her a seating position enabling her to look at Jareth as she tried to sit up.

" _ **I'd love to stay around, but I have other businesses to attend to. By the time I come back, a servant will have come with your dinner and will also have had your repulsive clothes disposed off. But knowing that you won't make things so easy for me, I know you'll be a good girl and put on the clothes provided for you in the wardrobe. See you later, my sweet pumpkin.**_ "

He threw a crystal ball onto the ground and disappeared into a smoke of sparkles, his evil laughter echoing in the halls and ignoring the complaints of Kaïra.

 _Around midnight in the Underground_

Jareth had gone around preparing things for the altar funeral. So far, things were going well, and if things went according to plan, he'll have forced Kaïra on the altar in about three days and be bounded to her godly essence forever.

Just thinking about her right now made the evil god's mouth water and the taste of victory flow down his body. From his perspective, he had managed to capture the most beautiful creature in all the Nine Realms and lock her up in his castle like a caged canary. He remembered when he first saw her in his crystal ball he instantly got hit by a lecherous arrow. When he eventually _touched_ , _felt_ , and _breathed_ her, the burning desire increased. Unlike most insane villains, Jareth didn't believe in anything related to emotional love or soulmates. In his eyes, males dominated females firmly and powerfully as long as they were lovely and beautiful. Jareth could possibly care less about whether or not Kaïra liked him (which was obvious she didn't), was intelligent, or powerful. The only thing he could possibly care about her was her insane beauty and how much he wanted to ravish her for both sexual and godly essence desire.

The only downside was that Jareth couldn't do such a thing yet to Kaïra because the rule was that, to get access to a god's full essence by forcing that god on the altar, the god had to be a pure virgin. So far, Jareth could only apply certain procedures that would give him _some_ godly essence to snack on until the wedding without deflowering Kaïra.

"Pardon, your Highness?" Jareth's most faithful guard came into the throneroom and inadvertently interrupted him from the disturbing thoughts he had in his mind. "I just wanted to inform you two things."

" _ **What is it**_?" Jareth groaned, rather upset of being interrupted from his personal lovely thoughts.

"Well, I wanted to inform you first that Thor's spawn are currently imprisoned. We tortured them in order to get information on why they came to seek Laevateinn from your kingdom."

Jareth sat up straight on his throne, now curious to know why the five young Asgardians had come to his kingdom, an area forbidden to gods like them, in order to claim the sickle spear. " _ **I'm listening**_."

"Apparently the Asgardians were recently having their coming of age ceremony. Your new pet was assigned to retrieve Laevateinn from you in order to prove her worth to the Aesir and Odin. Thor's progeny only came because they wanted to 'avenge the house of Odin'."

" _ **Thank you, my friend. This is quite curious information that you are giving me**_."

"It is?"

" _ **Think for a moment, my friend.**_ " Jareth summoned a crystal ball and showed an image of a golden sickle spear to the guard. " _ **Many foul souls have tried to get their hands on Laevateinn before me. But the sickle spear is almost like Thor's hammer: only certain people can wield it. For the hammer, it was those worthy of the power. For the sickle spear, it's for tricksters. I didn't ask for permission to take the spear. It knows if the one touching its handle is a trickster or not. I was able to lift it and bring it back with me to the Underground because I'm a trickster.**_ "

"But what does it have to do with your pet?"

" _ **Aesir gods receiving their quests during their coming of age ceremony is assigned by Yggdrasil itself, therefore whatever assignment they get is not just something probable that comes out of a wheel of fortune. The quest is practically destiny. It can't be a coincidence that Kaïra was tasked to retrieve Laevateinn.**_ "

"So are you suggesting that she's a trickster?"

" _ **Maybe. Perhaps she does or doesn't know. But as long as the altar ceremony proceeds as according to plan, she'll be trapped with me forever and her quest won't be a concern anymore.**_ " Jareth got up and stretched himself. " _ **Speaking of the Devil, how's my new treasure?**_ "

"Fed, cleaned, and conveniently dressed, your Highness," the guard said with a smile. "Although she did try to put quite a fight to get out while we were in her cell, so we had to hogtie her and inject a tranquilizing serum in her. The more she struggles and the more her muscles will weaken, which will make her powerless and unable to withstand you."

Jareth looked pleased and gratefully patted the guard on the shoulder. " _ **My friend, you are wonderful**_."

The guard nodded and bowed, wishing Jareth to enjoy himself as he watched the god use another one of his crystal balls to teleport himself out of the throneroom and into the cell where Kaïra was held.

" _ **Dear goblins, you look**_ _BEAUTIFUL_ _ **!**_ " Jareth gasped, his mouth nearly over drooling and his jaw dropping off from his skull.

" _More like a whore being forced to sell her body to you!_ " Kaïra spat as she struggled to shake off the chains that bound her wrists together. Aside from what the guard had told Jareth, her struggling was only increasing the show that she didn't know she was giving Jareth, much to his satisfaction. For starters, Kaïra had been forced to wear a emerald green, golden sparkled belly dancer outfit made out of a strapless shelf bra and a thong underwear that was barely hidden by the golden mini hip wrap skirt above it. Her dark brown hair and magenta streak were pulled up in a ponytail, which exposed her pale, but flawlessly smooth neck skin. Each of her forearms and legs had a diamond bracelet that resembled more like slave shackles thanks to her condition, and her ears had snake earrings made of the same minerals. Kaïra had been tied up in a hogtie style position, with her hands and bare feet bound from behind and her bare stomach kissing the bed sheets, which meant that while she struggled to get rid of her bonds, she was shaking her dangerously exposed, yet appealing body organs in a satisfactory manner.

" _ **Whore, schmore**_ ," Jareth shrugged as he took a few more steps. Just as he got close enough to sit next to her on the bed, she began to stop struggling and started to pant a lot as if she had been running all over the maze without even taking a break.

" _What's...happening...to...me_?" Kaïra gasped as Jareth untied her and squeezed her right bare buttock in his hand. She gasped even further when the unwanted shivers he was giving her was causing more of her energy to be drained. " _What...are you...doing to me_?"

" _ **At first, you're body is tiring up from struggling against your bonds thanks to the serum my servants injected earlier in you, and then secondly, the mere dominating power I just had on you was enough for me to suck some of your godly essence and feed myself a bit, which tired your muscles even further**_ ," Jareth explained as he proceeded to then molest the left buttock.

" _You're weakening me so that you can feast on me much easily?_ " Kaïra whimpered in pain as she felt energy draining from her body and literally going through the evil fingers that were touching the hips she now hated.

" _ **No, the real feasting will be at our marriage. You see, I can't force you onto the altar and get your godly essence if I rape you now**_." Kaïra's eyes widened at the mention of the word. " _ **But I can snack on you and your essence with my advances before the ceremony. And rest assured, those advances will then be used for more comfortable reasons**_." He then used his hands to flip over Kaïra and make her lie down on the pillows in a position that made her face him.

" _Just why the hell would being your sexual toy make things any comfortable?_ " Kaïra spat at the god's face, but Jareth only smiled amusingly as he rubbed off the saliva that landed on his cheek and sucked his wet fingers, much to Kaïra's shock.

" _ **Did you know that godly essence can be found in body fluids? Let me demonstrate.**_ " Without a warning, he dove his face into the young goddess' face and crushed his wrinkled lips onto hers. This was a nightmare for Kaïra: through her muffled screams, those ghastly lips tasted like mud mixed with vinegar and were sucking their way around her mouth, wrestling her tongue and sweeping everything in order to dry her mouth out of any saliva. For Jareth, he was in Heaven: the more he tasted her cherry-flavored mouth and squeezed her attractive plump butt felt like he was getting drunk with nectar.

" _No more..._ " Kaïra gasped once he let go of her lips. Sweat was beginning to trickle down her body. " _I'm begging you_."

" _ **The only thing you'll be begging from me is to make you mine and me yours**_ ," Jareth growled. He hungrily began to make his way onto her neck and, like a lion, began to kiss her soft skin, nib on the collarbone, and lick any inch of sweet sweat he could find. His touches continued to tire the poor, beautiful goddess out of her strength while the powerful, ugly god continued to torment her like meat.

" _NO! ANYTHING BUT THIS!_ " Kaïra screamed when she felt Jareth's hands grab her bra. " _LORD JARETH, PLEASE! STOP!_ "

" _ **A king does what he wants**_ ," Jareth said smugly. He brutally tore off the bra, causing Kaïra's breasts' to bounce and for her beautiful nipples to be exposed. He then whispered in Kaïra's ear: " _ **Godly essence can also be found in fluids like breastfeeding milk**_."

" _JARETH, PLEASE!_ " It was too late: the Goblin King didn't bother listening to her and spent the next ten minutes licking, sucking, and nipping each nipple and squeezing a buttock at a certain rhythm. If he toying with the right breast, his left hand would be squeezing the left breast and his right hand doing a similar thing to the right buttock as if the breast and the hip were being used as pump for the breast that Jareth was torturing.

Kaïra was getting so tired by the minute that she couldn't keep Jareth from licking the godly essence found in her navel and groping her bare, slender legs before he then peeped under her skirt and removed it and the underwear.

" _ **We'll be having SO much fun after we're married in three days**_!" Jareth said as he sat down on the bed next to the now naked Kaïra, whose eyes were now threatening to close.

" _I just want to...go home_ ," Kaïra cried.

" _ **OH, but my sweet pumpkin!**_ " Jareth laughed before teleporting himself away and leaving Kaïra to fall unconscious in her bed. " _ **Everybody trapped in the Underground is at home!**_ "


	11. Demigods

FACING DESTINY

Demigods

They had a meeting at the sheriff's station instantly in the afternoon to discuss the urging news.

"Swan, this can't be," Killian said in disbelief once Emma was done telling everything. "There is no way that Fitzgerald is the Evil One's son!"

"Well that's what Rosetta and her new BFF Maleficent's granddaughter were saying!" Regina snapped. "And to crown it all, apparently the Evil One -whoever he is- wants to turn Fidget into a Dark One so that he himself can reincarnate into Fidget and get all the power when the eclipse comes."

"Great Ra..." Anubis gasped. As dismayed as he was about his daughter associating with villains and estranging herself willingly from her family, he was more shocked by what he was hearing from the heroes. "Not again..."

"Not again?" Emma asked. "Wait, you mean it's been done before?"

"Indeed. By a god with...severe attention issues that led him to kill a Dark One from the past and become the first godly Dark One. Even allied all together, none of the existing god could defeat him until his creator extracted the darkness and put it back in a human host while the other gods banished the mad god into a territory forbidden to other immortals."

"You do know of course that it's highly likely that the god you're talking about and the Evil One are probably the same one?" Mr. Gold said as he toyed his thumbs.

"That's what I'm worried about." Anubis began to pace the station. "Thanks to what happened in the past, no god is allowed to become a Dark One. Matter of fact, once the darkness is extracted from the host, that host can never be the Dark One ever again!"

"Those are true and accurate facts," the ex-Dark One said, "but so is the ancient spell that grants an ex-Dark One to regain his old powers along with infinite, mastergod ones if he were to reincarnate in his own flesh and blood...as long as the host has evil born and made within him that's beyond powerful."

"And if the Evil One is indeed Fidget's father, that can only mean that his mother is the late priestess Svjetla Briga-Posten Ashiva..." Bartok muttered as he slouched forward on his chair, his elbows on the nearest table and his fingers pinching his nose.

"But wouldn't that make him your distant cousin then, Dad?" Hermia asked her father. Everyone watched as the albino Batrishan pinched his nose with even more frustration.

"Unfortunately yes," he muttered. "Which means that based on lineage accuracy and heritage from Svjetla, one of the last Batrishan Priests, Fitzgerald Denada Cortés is indeed the Crown Prince born from Ashiva's royal descendants."

'Shit' was heard throughout the room. Honestly, no one would have imagined that Fidget the Bat, a severely crippled but clever and evil Batrishan, could have been the son of an evil god and the heir of a most likely extinct civilization.

"I guess it makes sense in a way," Killian finally said. "After all, his patron Kaïra found him in the woods sometime after the Batrishan Genocide first started and personally delivered him to the front steps of St. Alejandro's Chapel in Aldorada, which is beyond far away from the Batrishan Sanctuary. But how did he get out of the city alive and without his...father finding out?" Killian hesitated at the mention of the word 'father'.

"The Evil One came back to the Batrishan Sanctuary to collect his child a couple of days after the baby was born, only the baby was never found. The god was beyond **not** happy!" Bartok said.

"So maybe he was smuggled out?" David suggested. "Perhaps somebody took him when he was a baby and hid him far away from the Sanctuary before the Genocide was unleashed and right at a time when Kaïra found him and took him somewhere else that was safer? I mean, that's almost what Snow and I did when we had to send Emma away from home when the first Dark Curse came." He looked meaningfully at his daughter, who understood what he meant.

Bartok rubbed his chin in thought. "You're probably right. From what I heard, Svjetla's maternal family, including her mother Briga, was still alive when Fidget was born. It's highly possible that they smuggled him out as an infant from the Royal Palace before the priests were going to kill him and out of the Sanctuary way before the Evil One returned to claim custody."

"What happened to them? Fidget's maternal family?" Emma asked.

"Clearly the Evil One had them killed since he had his minions kill every Batrishan from the Batrishan Sanctuary without exception," Bartok answered. "As for the survivors who sacrificed our species by joining religious monasteries or breeding with humans, the Evil One must have decided to let them destroy themselves with their actions without even lifting his finger."

"There is just one thing that I don't get," Marion said as she lifted a finger. "How come it's only now that we find out Fidget is the son of a homicidal god and that same god hasn't found his son in like...300 years?"

That was quite a question. For one, it didn't seem like Fidget was aware or cared about his godly parentage. For all the heroes knew, the dark Batrishan knew only that his godly patron, Kaïra Lokisia, had deposed him in front of a chapel for him to be adopted by human noblemen after he was supposedly abandoned by his parents presumed to have come from the Batrishan priests. But Fidget himself had never bothered to look up on his past. All he had cared for was everything he had as he was raised by humans and getting his revenge-hungered heart nourished from losing all of the life he had before turning into the villain he was.

"First things first," David said. "For one, we should speak to Fidget himself and tell him everything. Perhaps see what he knows."

"No problem finding out where he might be," Hermia said. "Thanks to one ticked demigoddess and her new weird friend, I know just where they might be."

 _Later, at Gary Point Park_

Theresa and Fitzgerald sat at one of the picnic tables in the park that had a nice view of the sea. A turquoise tablecloth had been placed in order to keep their hands and elbows clean as they did the procedure. Theresa pulled out the Crystal Chalices and put them on the table while Fitzgerald took out two bottles: one of them containing strands of their hair, which formed a purple glowing liquid, and the other a bottle of good quality Aldoradian sangria.

"A bottle containing true love in order to break me free from the Elixir," Fitzgerald said as he poured the purple liquid into each of the chalices, making sure that he gave an equal amount. "And a bottle of sangria to celebrate."

Theresa giggled. "You sound like my mother. Back in the old days, if she was in such a good mood after she was done with her work, she'd pour herself into a celebratory drink."

Fitzgerald smiled at her. He handed her a chalice while he took one with his gloved hand. After what had happened to him with the terrible visions after he had touched one of the Crystal Chalices, he was almost afraid of touching them again until he found out that nothing happened to him if he touched them again, only this time with gloves on.

"You ready?" Theresa asked. She began to raise her cup until his hand caught her and gently lowered it.

"I have a few words to say, Theresa," he said. They stared at one another for a bit before he began to speak. "Theresa, thank you for helping me through my own conflict. After what happened to my family, my ex-fiancée, and my country...I didn't think I could ever be genuinely loved again. All I could think about was a never-ending pursuit for a revenge that I could never obtain, leaving me in evil darkness." He gently stroke her cheek as he spoke. "But then you came. You, the young woman I met back when I first moved to my cottage while you were tending lilacs, my favorite flowers. You finally gave me a reason to feel more complete and give up this eternal immortality that I have. Starting today, once I drink from this chalice, I will have a mortality back and I am ready to finally have a peaceful, normal life...with you."

Tears were growing from his eyes while a touched Theresa stroke the hand that was caressing her cheek. "Thank you as well, Fitzgerald. I must admit as well that, despite how crazy and ridiculous it might seem to you, I fell in love with the peg-legged, wing crippled, ear notched 300 year-old Batrishan right when he first moved to that lonely little cottage above the cliff."

Fitzgerald blushed a bit. He and Theresa then crossed their right arms together while their right hands held the Crystal Chalices full of true love.

"To a better future?" Fitzgerald asked.

"To a better future," Theresa said.

They clanged the chalices together and began to drink the entire contents. The flavor of the drink was way too sweet, but the main focus was that the couple pulled their arms away in order to gag at the flavor on their tongues and wince in pain at the magic that was filling in them. Theresa was coughing terribly as she felt a chill slither down her spine while Fitzgerald was screaming and clutching his hair in agony as he felt like a part of his soul was ripping away from his body like a sword chopping into flesh.

They managed to sit dizzily on their seats once the entire painful magic is over. "Did it work?" Theresa gasped. "I feel like I ate a boulder."

Fitzgerald snorted as he began pouring sangria in the Chalices. "Well I feel like every single one of my organs got poked by a needle on the inside. So...I'm going to say WE DID IT!" He raised his chalice triumphantly in the air.

"You hypocritical swine..."

Fitzgerald and Theresa turned to see something they did not expect: Bartok and the rest of the heroes of Storybrooke standing a few feet away from them.

"What's up, Bartok?" Fitzgerald waved his hand gleefully. "Nice day today, isn't it?"

"It would have been a nice day if you weren't such a selfish jerk," the albino Batrishan said. "How dare you have come to me centuries ago to demand that I give you the rest of the Elixir of Nine Lives' formula and murder my Jasmine while you were at it, and here you are getting rid of your eternal immortality by sharing it with a woman? What happened to you blabbering about love being weakness?"

"That was _so_ in the past, Bartok!" Fitzgerald walked towards the albino Batrishan and put an arm over his shoulders. "You know, everything seems so much brighter right now. I feel like I just stepped in Candy Land. Is that what freedom looks like?"

Bartok and everyone else including Theresa frowned at Fitzgerald's behavior. "Either he's getting creepy or he's drunk," Emma commented.

"Hey, Killian!" the dark Batrishan left Bartok in order to join the pirate. "Old mate, how I missed ya! Sorry about all those nasty things I did to ya in the past, especially calling you a codfish. I wasn't in my best form. Forgive me?"

"What happened to him?" Killian asked as he and David grabbed Fitzgerald by the arms and helped him sit up on the picnic seat. "He doesn't sound like himself."

"Clearly the spell wasn't finished," Mr. Gold said. He turned to face Theresa. "If you were so detailed, Ms Rogers, you'd have also ripped off the page that says what must be done after drinking true love at the same time."

"How did you find out?" a surprised Theresa asked.

"You have an distinctive odor and I happen to clean my shop every five days, for your information. Now, if you want to break your new inamorato out of his odd trance, I'd suggest you give him a traditional act of true love."

Message received, Theresa took Fitzgerald's face in her hands and leaned in to kiss him, ignoring the disturbed or awkward faces from the heroes as the dark Batrishan regained his regular attitude, much to their relief.

"Why are you all here?" Fidget demanded. "If it's about the town line..."

"No, it's not the town line," Killian said. "Fitzgerald, there's something that we need to tell you..."

"And I'm afraid I'm not interested." He held out his hands, indicating Killian to be quiet. "This is clearly heroes' work and therefore not my kind of work. I am going to move on, Killian, and restart from square one without any of your interference." He waved a finger at them while his other hand took Theresa's. "I finally found something to fill my empty black heart."

Theresa smiled back at him.

"It is sweet but that's not the point," Mary Margaret cut in. "Fidget, we have reasons to believe that someone may be after you."

"Like that's new?" Theresa scoffed, which shocked Mary Margaret. "Your business isn't..."

"Theresa?"

Everyone looked at Anubis and Marion, whose eyes were wider than plates when they saw the young blonde.

"Theresa? Is that...really you?" Marion gasped.

"No, it can't be. She was still so little the last time we saw her!" Anubis said.

"The last time you saw her?" Emma asked in disbelief. "You mean...you know her?"

Theresa was starting to sweat when her stunned eyes seemed to realize that her hair wasn't pulled up in the usual, well-detailed bun that she used to hide her magenta streak whenever she was going to educate the children at school. "Shit!" she realized.

"Theresa?" Fitzgerald was getting concerned.

"How could I have not seen that?" Marion gritted her teeth in frustration. "You used some sort of spell to get make your demigod odor and aura invisible so that no other god, including my husband, or anyone related to the Avengers could identify you!" Her eyes widened in realization and the redheaded woman exclaimed. "That's how the Evil One was unable to find Fidget for 300 years! Her mother must have used that same spell to veil Fidget's mere existence!"

Fitzgerald turned to face Theresa. The crimson in his eyes stared at her green orbs while his mouth tried to hold back a tearful gulp. "Theresa...please tell me you're not..."

" _Well it was about time!_ "

A puff of green smoke appeared and a familiar woman appeared, sitting on the picnic table in the same outfit she had worn back when the heroes had to deal with Xibalba, La Muerte, and the heroes of San Angel months ago. A woman who was the spitting image of Theresa, only with brown instead of blonde hair, even sharper green eyes, and paler skin. A woman, who this time, came accompanied by a golden sickle spear in her hands.

"Hello," Theresa told Kaïra Lokisia in a cold tone. " _Mother._ "


	12. The Evil One

FACING DESTINY

The Evil One

"YOUR MOTHER IS MY PATRON?" Fidget exploded at Theresa, who still glared murderously at the goddess on the picnic table.

"Apparently so," Theresa said coldly. "What the Hell are you doing here, Mother?"

" _Certainly not to drop by to say congratulations for finally getting yourself a man,_ " Kaïra snorted. " _I would have a preferred you ended up with someone else, but turns out that you and Fitzgerald being enamored with one another has gone to my advantage._ " She snapped her fingers and an ancient scroll appeared in her hands. It unrolled itself, revealing something written in ancient text. " _There's the pact you asked for and that you_ _ **specifically**_ _signed_ _ **in Stygian water ink**_ _, Fitzgerald! The nerve of you to try going back on our deal!_ "

"The pact...NOT THAT!" Fidget grabbed the scroll and read it like a madman. "You can't!"

" _I SO CAN, FITZGERALD DENADA CORTÉS!_ " Kaïra screamed at his face. " _How dare you have the audacity of coming to your patron for a service to get something_ _ **you**_ _wanted and then go back on the deal?_ "

"Is this about the five parchments?" Mr. Gold asked. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised."

"You know about this?" Emma asked.

"It was part of the dark Batrishans hunt for eternal invincibility in order to get the powers to destroy the pirate. In order to get the eternal invincibility, he had to get five pacts from five immortals and commit a service to them in order to get them. He had come to me in the past to get one..."

"Which is how you got the 100 villains trapped in Pandora's Box," Emma realized. "And Cora also gave him a pact. So, does that mean..."

" _I gave him a pact_ ," Kaïra snarled as she poked an angry finger at Fidget's head, " _and_ _ **you**_ _were supposed to serve me in the afterlife if you were ever to mix with my blood, but you purposely tried to avoid paying your debt_!"

"Like I wanted to have a fling with my patron!" Fidget retorted. "And how the Hell was I supposed to know that Theresa was your daughter?" He then turned to Theresa with a rather broken look. "And I can't believe you hid the truth from me! Why hide the fact that Kaïra was your mother?"

"Because my mother is as self-interested as she is attentive to others' issues!" Theresa pointed angrily at her mother. "Before I came to Storybrooke, I lived with Mother, my father, and my little brother Toby in an alternate New York with the other Avengers, along with Marion and Anubis." She briefly glanced at the latter. "But then one day when I was younger, some sort of force came and attacked us all, threatening to destroy our home, and some of us barely escaped, and while Dad and Toby got killed, Mother only saved me because unlike Toby I had powers and she said she'd need me more than him!"

Everyone glared at Kaïra in shock. The goddess didn't flinch at all.

"I then ran away from her realm where she raised me since the attack. I spent most of my teenage years taking online school courses, doing full-time jobs to pay for my own college tuition, and digging my own research on the supernatural and magical because I didn't believe at all that my father and brother were dead for sure.

"Then one day, just about two or three years ago, I was about to head for a visit to the Enchanted Forest's Sea Witch hiding in this world's New York when I noticed a rather un-modern sailing ship arriving in the harbor." Theresa motioned to Killian. "It was Captain Hook arriving to New York for god knows what, but I knew one thing: he must have had some sort of magic applied to his ship from somewhere to travel around, so as soon as he was out of his ship and doing whatever errand he needed to do, I snuck my way into the ship."

"You stowed into my ship?" Killian said, rather embarrassed by the fact that somebody stowed in his own ship.

"Yes, but when the ship _did_ leave, it was guided by the Savior, her son, her ex, and the Dark One. I knew about the Dark Curses and everything from my mother, but if there's one thing I knew when I spotted the ill-Dark One and the Savior together from the spot I was hiding in..."

"Hang on. _Where_ you hiding?" Emma cut her off.

Theresa rolled her eyes. "In an empty barrel. SO anyway, I knew that if such figures from the Enchanted Forest were on the ship of _the_ Captain Hook, I knew that I was heading somewhere in particular and that's how I ended up in Storybrooke and began to continue my research to find my family." She turned to Regina. "But then _you_ had to call everyone back home when Pan threatened to destroy the town and _I_ had to enchant myself that I didn't end up accidently sent back to my mother's castle. For the next year, I still found no results and I almost ran into Marion and Anubis at the house they were living in with Rosetta- she was _very cute_ by the way when I saw her playing with them, but I avoided them because I was worried they'd tip me off to Mother..."

"But we still wouldn't have because she cloaked your scent," Anubis said.

"Apparently so," Theresa sighed. "In the end, I had to agree with the fact that I would never see Dad nor Toby but nor would I go back to Mother, so I let myself get teleported back to Storybrooke during the Second Curse where I assumed the life of a part-time teacher and on-field community volunteer while hiding my identity as the daughter of Kaïra Lokisia to the point of even fooling the Dark One." She walked to Fidget and held his hands with hers. "Eventually, I met Fidget on the day he moved into his cottage while I was tending the garden lilacs and after one visit and one date, I kind of hosted him after he was getting depressed from his...lack of life meaning."

"Hm, the best three months of my life, yeah I remember," Fidget grinned.

"Same here...until _somebody_ decided to crash the party!" They glared at the heroes and Kaïra respectively. "But you Mother are more spineless than I imagined! How could you use me to toy with him?"

" _I didn't even know you two were together until I sensed your essence getting touched and eventually deflowered by a man!_ " Kaïra protested.

"Oy, I forgot that demigods were psychically connected to their godly..." Anubis cut himself. "Hang on. A psychic link should have enabled the Evil One to track down Fidget despite the masking veil and you are not as powerful as Ra, Kaïra."

" _I never put the veiling mask. Friga was the one who put it on Fitzgerald..._ "

"SHUT UP!"

Everyone, including the gods, freaked out when Fidget bursted with anger. He glared at his patroness. "You knew who my parents were from the start, didn't you? And you dare accuse _me_ of being unfaithful to our pact while you toyed me for about 300 years!"

" _I did it to protect you_!"

"Oh, that's rich!" Theresa joined Fidget. "You couldn't save Dad or Toby but you _could_ save a Batrishan that wasn't even from your own blood!"

" _Don't you dare butt in, Theresa!_ "

"I'll dare as much as I want! You lost the privilege of having my dependence and love for you ever since you only bothered to save your only daughter and ditch your powerless son and the mortal man you dared to love and sacrifice your place in Asgard!"

"What is she talking about?" Mary Margaret asked.

"Kaïra used to have a position in Odin's court despite being the daughter of Loki," Marion explained, "but since she fell for a mortal man and was prepared to ditch her own godly responsibilities, they kicked her out and left her to be a goddess who can't go back to Asgard and must errand from her kingdom into the mortal lands."

"I'm not going to say this twice," Fidget told his patroness once again. "You owe me information. Now!"

A look of unexpected guilt appeared on Kaïra's face. She sighed as she sat on the picnic table and told her story. " _I was fifteen when it happened. Friga sent me to the Eastern Hemisphere of the Enchanted Forest to collect some healing herbs that she needed. I was halfway through my task until I heard a distant sound that made me neglect my herb collecting and rush to the source. That's where I found an abandoned camping area and something hiding in a tree stump well camouflaged by foliage: a baby Batrishan, barely a few days old, who was crying from not being fed. I took pity on the poor thing and took it with me back to Asgard._

" _I did want to adopt the infant, but Friga told me it was not to be done as she fed him. Through magical revelations, we discovered that the baby was actually the demigod offspring of an ancient evil god, not as ancient as the All-Mother but still powerful, who raped the young Batrishan priestess Svjetla, a descendant of the Batrishan god Ashiva, when she made a wish to have a great child with her fiancé. Due to the powerful godly ancestry the baby had, Svjetla instantly died while on labor, angering her ex-fiancé who rallied the other Batrishan Priests to kill off the infant as soon as possible. The plan was thwarted because Svjetla's mother Briga had snuck the baby out of the priests' nursery and the rest of her family out of the Batrishan sanctuary in order to spare her grandson from death. But what they didn't know was that they just gave themselves a few lucky days to avoid the wrath of the Evil One, who had returned to the Batrishan Sanctuary in order to claim custody of his child and was furious to discover that not only was his child missing but the priests wanted to destroy it, so he returned the favor by unleashing his monsters and curses at the Batrishans, dooming the civilization to extinction._

 _"Briga and her family had tried to go as far as they could and decided to split up in order to find the nearest human port with a ship that could lead them far away from the Batrishan Sanctuary while one relative guarded the baby. They were planning on meeting back to the camp in three days, but on the first day, the relative had hidden in the baby in the tree I found it in order to keep it safe while he collected some food, but he accidently sniffed some poppies that put him to sleep and made him the meal of some wild beasts. By the time Briga and the others returned, the baby was already gone with me and the Evil One's minions found them and killed them._

" _Bartok aside, the baby was labeled as the last Batrishan and must keep his existence a secret, which is why Friga placed a strong masking veil to hide him from any god who could hunt him down, named me the child's patroness, and ordered me to spirit the child away to the land farthest from the Batrishan Sanctuary, where the child would be protected from his tragic past._ "

"Aldorada," Killian realized.

" _Precisely. I arrived at Aldorada with the baby in a casket right on the local holiday of St. Fitzgerald and deposed the casket in front of St Alejandro Chapel while the place was filled with merry noblemen, and just to my luck, a certain couple who had just lost their only child during labor grew fond of the baby as soon as they laid their eyes on it and chose to adopt it, naming the lucky creature after the saint they were honoring._ "

"Mother and Father," Fidget realized. Sadness was filling him and he fell on his knees as tears began to come out of him.

" _Geneva and Hernan Denada Cortés were by far the kindest and most loving parents any child would want. They loved you dearly and so did their entire staff, but they made the mistake of thinking they could hide anything about your Batrishan heritage from you. Then again, I still think that Friga and I should have taken your birth medallion as soon as we found you but Friga insisted that you kept it since Batrishans are traditionally forbidden to not wear their birth medallions forever._ "

"What's so bad about not wearing it?" Emma asked.

"The medallions reflect your inner value to both yourself and society." They turned to see Tristan, Belle, Lily, and Maleficent coming their way.

"The squire," Fidget muttered.

"I should have trusted my suspicious after Rosie's descriptions hinted the possibilities of you being the Evil One's son." He walked towards Fidget and forcefully pulled out the golden medallion that Fidget always hid underneath his shirt. "And I still don't understand why a despicable Batrishan like yourself would get a Batrishan birth medallion made of pure gold while nothing you've done in the past was noble!"

"He was Aldorada's finest soldier and war hero before he turned evil!" Killian defended Fidget. "If my king wasn't so greedy and desiring to have Fitzgerald assassinated because he saw him as a disadvantage, Fitzgerald would have never become what he is right now!"

"Killian..." Fidget was stunned by what the codfish was saying.

" _The pirate's words do ring with truth, but at the same time Fitzgerald was likely doomed to darkness because of his connection to the Evil One._ " She snapped her fingers and the medallion turned in circles like a flipped coin on Fidget's chest, revealing that the golden front of the medallion was hiding the other half of the medallion covered with dark roots covering a flying bat like waning mushroom roots. " _The pureness of the gold showed his worth as someone of true goodness, which his how Fitzgerald spent his first seventeen years raised as, but because of his connection to the Evil One, a part of him is also worth pure evil, which he got contaminated with for the last 283 years. Geneva and Hernan hoped to have prevented it by locking away the medallion after a sorcerer told them about the possibilities of Fitzgerald's fate, but Fitzgerald still found it when he was a child and was told the only part of his past that they knew: that his people were dead and that his birth parents abandoned him in the rain._ "

"So all the things I've done..." Fidget said with a quivering voice. "Everything that happened to me ever since my mother died..."

" _Svjetla or Geneva_?" Kaïra frowned.

" **I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THE FUCKING PRIESTESS WHO MADE BIRTH TO ME BECAUSE SOME GOD RAPED HER!** " Fidget screamed. "My only mother is the one who actually bothered to raise me, feed me, educate me, protect me when others were being prejudiced, organizing my birthday parties, and telling me to be myself when I was with her on her death bed! Not a mother I never knew or the one who tried to be one to me by manipulating everything in my life! Is there anything that you didn't do wrong?"

"Uh, not tell you that you might be the Crown Prince of the Batrishans?" Hermia suggested. Fidget murderously glared at her, forcing Bartok to shield his daughter.

"Fidget, I know your past is rather ugly, but we need you right now!" Bartok said. "Your father is planning to come to Storybrooke so that he can use you to turn into the Dark One and you've got to be the one who defeats him!"

"Can't he just use the Dark One's dagger to do so?" Fidget frowned.

" _Odin's beard, he's doing it again_!" Kaïra said.

" _Doing it again_?" Fidget growled. "Ugh! There are days when I wish you'd stop hiding the truth from me!"

"NO!" Bartok, Tristan, and Kaïra exclaimed. The sky suddenly darkened and the ground shook, creating a rift that separated Fidget and Kaïra from the others.

"Fitzgerald!" Theresa failed to reach out for Fidget, who found himself bound by crystal shackles that grew from the ground. Kaïra was also sharing his fate.

"What's happening?" Belle asked as she hid in her husband's protective hold.

" **I'm happening!** " a hooded figure emerged from the crack in the ground and stood before the prisoners. The figure pulled its hood down, revealing an awful demon with sick colored skin, black hair flowing like mist, and eyes that looked just like...

"My eyes?" Fidget gasped.

" **We do share the demonic eyes and hair** ," the Evil One said. He moved so fast like the wind that Fidget couldn't see the god appearing before him and starting to pinch every inch of his head's skin, " **but you do have Svjetla's youthful beauty and idiocy. Hasn't anyone ever told you that saying 'I wish' and touching crystals will trigger my link to you**?"

"What...What are you talking about?" Fidget was actually getting terrified for the first time in his life: unlike his patroness, the Evil One was actually terrifying him.

" **My presence in the mortal lands can only come if somebody says 'I wish', which I do most of the time to snatch away children. As for the crystals...I wield powers from them and so does my sole offspring, meaning you. You touching those Crystal Chalices has made my tracking you down much easier.** " He picked up the chalices in question that Fidget and Theresa had used. " **I must thank you for using your own mother's belongings** ," he told Theresa. " **Aside from finally finding my own son, I also have the possibility of getting a hold of your mother for once!** "

"What?" Theresa looked at Kaïra. "Mother, you actually know the Evil One?" The only thing she got from the goddess was a dismayed grimaced.

" **My, I should know that introductions are required!** " The Evil One made a mocking curtsy. " **I am the one who destroyed the Batrishans one by one when I heard of their low desire to kill my offspring! I am the god who takes abandoned children wished away to my kingdom and feasts on their essences! I am the child of Evil itself! I am the first god to have attempted being a Dark One! I am...** "

"Will you quit it, Jareth?" Anubis snapped.

"JARETH?" everyone other than the gods exclaimed.

"The Goblin King living in the Underground?" Regina gasped.

"The monster who twists people's wishes whenever he hears the words 'I wish'?" Mary Margaret cuddled close to David.

"The bad guy from LABYRINTH?" Emma frowned.

Jareth grunted in exasperation. " **You mortals are no fun.** " 


	13. Blackmail For Laevateinn

FACING DESTINY

Blackmail For Laevateinn

 _The Underground, year 1758. Two more days left until the forced marriage..._

" **You are all a bunch of pestering imbeciles!** " There were days when Jareth wondered why the accursed gods, including his ungrateful paternal creator, dared to doom Jareth into ruling a lousy kingdom with nitwit goblins as his servants. He eventually found the answer to be _eternal punishment_.

And that eternal punishment seemed eternal enough with all the ten goblins he sent to do a simple task came back all ragged out, scratched, and covered in ripped fabric, telling their master that they couldn't get close enough to Kaïra to make her test out the wedding dresses without her harming them. These were lame excuses for the goblins, since the only real harm they ended up getting was the one were their king blasted them into cinders.

" **Is it really that hard to make one weakened goddess try out a wedding dress?** " He slouched on his chair in frustration right when his faithful goblin guard came inside the throneroom. " **It's not I asked them to fetch the moon for me!** "

"In their defense, my lord," the goblin soldier said, "it turns out that your 'precious pumpkin' quickly recovered from the energy she lost when you consumed parts of her godly essence last night and had enough strength to tackle on your servants when they were sent to make her try dresses. Fortunately some of the guards and I were able to knock her out and chain her to the bed with heated copper cuffs..."

" **Heated copper cuffs?** " Jareth sat up properly, curious to know what the soldier meant.

"A metal that is intolerable in Jotunheim," the soldier explained. "I must confess, my lord, that one of the other soldiers who aided me at holding her down accidently created a scratch on the goddess' arm. While we had the injury nursed, I took a sample of the blood and, along with some research and precise torturing of Thor's children, I discovered that your 'pumpkin' is actually an abandoned child born in Jotunheim and raised by the All-Father's wife herself."

" **Who are Kaïra's parents then? Does she know who they are?** "

"The trickster god Loki and the tempting enchantress Amora, and no, it appears that the All-Father and the rest of the Aesir have chosen to keep your future queen blinded from her true nature."

" **So that's why Yggdrasil chose her to fetch Laevateinn and how she managed to solve my labyrinth in less than an hour. And I also forgot that gods with Jotun blood are known for recovering godly essence if lost.** " Jareth rubbed his chin as he thought carefully. " **This could be a problem for us. If we're not careful, she could trick her way out of my grasp before I get the chance to force her on the altar and run of with my precious sickle spear...** "

"My lord, if she's after the sickle spear, than what if you goad her into letting you force her on the altar with no resistance, and in exchange, you will give her the sickle spear...without actually giving it to her?"

Jareth's eyes glowed with pure maliciousness. " **My friend, I keep forgetting how intellectual you are.** " He looked at the clock in the throneroom. " **Perfect! It's lunchtime, and since my servants were unable to do the work themselves, I will have to 'help' my queen pick the ideal wedding dress...** "

He summoned a crystal ball and used it to open a portal leading to Kaïra's cell. An inhuman stench startled him, leaving him distracted enough to get punched by Kaïra. The goddess took the chance of attempting to grab hold of the crystal ball, only he managed to smash it before she could grab it. " **Why you beastly...** " He hammered his fist onto the floor, making the stone tiles move and shift until they formed a floor tub full of hot water and foam. He then grabbed Kaïra by the ankle and tossed her in it, giving her a forceful bath. Seeing her exclaim her disgust made him sneer. " **Clever, I'll give you that, but even purposely dirtying yourself with mud from the Bog Of Eternal Stench won't keep me from punishing my treacherous servant and from continuing to feast on your godly essence**." He pushed her head into the water and proceeded a routine of pushing her in and pulling her out of the water, making the foam stick to her body and turning into wedding dresses as well as cleaning her. Finally, after five minutes of going through at least twenty dresses, he found the perfect attire: a white 'wedding dress' with a strapless, sweetheart bodice corset, and a sarong shirt that couldn't conceal the curves on her hips.

" _This is what you call a wedding dress?_ " Kaïra said angrily. " _It's no different than the whore outfit your servants made me wear last night!_ "

" **Good, because honestly this isn't going to be a traditional wedding but a forced one.** " He dragged her to the bed and chained her wrists to the posts. " **As soon as I read the ancient matrimonial texts and bite your neck to mark you as my own property, I will be pinning you like meat on the altar and finally claiming your innocence. By then, I won't have to feast on young mortal infant essence everyday!** " He grinned at her even more and soon enough, his hands brought down the corset's neckline far enough to expose her breasts and let Jareth suck their pearly nipples in order to gain the godly essence that resided in it. The poor goddess whimpered and struggled to push him off her with her torsos.

" _Please, do anyone but me..._ " Kaïra begged. " _Just take somebody who can endure this more than I can! I'm not meant for this!_ "

" **Is that so? Then what** _ **are**_ **you meant for? A life of seclusion in Asgard, where hardly anyone considers adding you to their friendship groups because of your status as an orphaned god?** " Jareth unlaced and removed the corset so that he could scratch her bare belly with his sharp nails, making her whimper in fear, not just because he was molesting her but because he seemed to know the truth of her. " **I've also done my homework, Kaïra** ," he said sternly, using her name for the first time other than to call her 'my dear pumpkin', " **and I know that your rite of passage quest is pointless. Think about it: the Aesir don't like tricksters, so why would they accept you if you brought them, Laevateinn, which is a weapon only tricksters can wield.**

" **So here's my proposition: marry me and let me force you to hand over the godly essence without any protesting, and as a wedding gift, you may have Laevateinn.** "

Kaïra stiffened under his grasp. Accept a forced life as a sex slave and trophy wife to this monster and get the weapon she was tasked to retrieve? This would reveal to be complicated. In order to show he meant business, he unchained her and helped her get up. Jareth gave a small smug grin when Kaïra crossed her arms in order to cover her bare chest. " **Do we have a deal?** "

Kaïra finally gave in. " _If you release my friends before you drown them in the Bog and let them return to Asgard with Laevateinn, I will marry you._ "

" **Don't try to trick the master of twist and turns, Kaïra!** " Jareth warned and poked her on the nose. " **I will free your friends and let them leave with the sickle spear, but** _ **only**_ **after we are married! That way your position against me will be hopeless and I won't kill those Thor children if you dare turn your back on me! How about this for a deal?** "

His proposition was so crystal clear that even she couldn't neglect it. She gave in and held out her hand. " _We have a deal._ "

Jareth smiled cruelly to himself. He took Kaïra's hand and kissed it, making Kaïra feel her another part of her godly essence being consumed. Losing parts of it by this god who used her essence as snacks already weakened her, but to imagine how weak and helpless she'll finally be by the time he had full-access to it via the forced marriage...

 _Meanwhile, in the dungeons far beneath the castle..._

The four children of Thor were still stunned. Barely a few six hours ago, they were being pulled down by a crane towards the Bog of Eternal Stench by Jareth's goons until a messenger came and told the goons that the young gods would be held hostage in the dungeons until after the heartless god of the Underground was united with his new queen through matrimony. Even Torun, who used to complain about her appearance, didn't whine about her near-stinky experience with the waters of the bog.

Because what one of Jareth's double-crossing servants revealed to them after he snuck into their cell to provide them with a file to saw through their chains.

"Jareth is an emotionless monster," Hoggle warned them while he freed Magni first. "But his evilness is nothing compared to his bag of ol' tricks. He's got your friend completely fooled."

" _What as he done to her?_ " Thrud demanded.

"So far? Feasting on parts of her godly essence."

Magni, Modi, Thrud, and Torun gasped in horror. There were many crimes against the gods that their divine societies disdain. For many, mortals serving human meat rather than freshly sacrificed animals and wine was one of them, but the worst crime any god could imagine was a god feasting on a young goddess' godly essence and forcing her to be his wife to preserve his new 'refreshment'. Such a crime could lead you to being thrown into Tartarus.

"Ever since Jareth was banished to the Underground, he's been starving from being deprived of the ol' ambrosia and nectar you gods eat," Hoggle explained as he finished freeing the others. "Until he saw you folks coming into his lair, he's been using the essence of abandoned children to feed himself as they grew up. Heck, most of the goblins here are withering corpses of abandoned children he's been feasting on."

" _And he seems to have taken a liking to Kaïra in order to choose her to feast on_ ," Modi concluded.

" _How bad is her condition right now?_ " Thrud asked Hoggle.

"Terrible! The king has her locked up and taken care of by his servants until he visits her every night to taste as much essence as he can while lusting over her physically!" The gods and goddesses shuddered at his words. "And the worst part is, just a few minutes ago, he managed to trick her into willingly submitting to him if he'd let you four go with the sickle spear."

" _A promise he doesn't intend to keep_ ," Magni said in anger.

"How right you are!" Hoggle said. "He may be desperate to satisfy his hungers, but he's not the kind of person who'll willingly hand over a priced collected item of his. Besides, he never swore on the River Styx to keep his end of the deal. As soon as he gains controls of her essence in two days, you four will be useless to him and thus executed!"

" _Ugh, the weasel!_ " Modi clenched her fist. " _And he dares to call himself a god!_ "

" _Wait, if he wants to have her godly essence so badly, then why hasn't he already taken it? Why wait for two more days?_ " Torun asked.

"Because it will be the anniversary of the thing he lost." A servant had come in to check on the prisoners. She looked nothing like one of the ugly goblins. The only ugliness in her were the grey scullery maid dress and greasy arms. But it's not what shocked the gods the most about this redheaded girl.

It was the Batrishan ears and wings that did.


	14. Rise Of The Labyrinth

FACING DESTINY

Rise Of The Labyrinth

Everyone was still startled to see the Evil One himself standing before them. The grass withered at each step he took and the air around him seemed to dry up as he approached the shackled Fidget and grabbed him by the hair.

"OW! I actually felt that!" Fidget exclaimed.

" **I'm personally enraged that the Batrishan Priests and Kaïra ripped you away from me, making my plans delay, but such a dark aura and physical health...** " The god snickered. " **I'm actually relieved that they spared me the agony of raising a child**."

" _Raise a child?_ As if!" Anubis snorted. "You couldn't even keep a tantrum to yourself?"

"Wait, you actually know him?" Marion asked her husband.

"Which god doesn't?" Anubis rolled his eyes as if he were reliving a déjà vu. "Jareth was jealous that his sister Discordia, for being a pure villain, was favored by their father, the entity of Evil, so he tried to become the Dark One in order to make his father proud. Naturally, he was rejected again because of the villain motto."

"The villain motto?" Emma asked.

"That being evil must be for yourself and not others," Maleficent said. "Jareth didn't realize that being evil meant _being dedicated to it_ and not just do it to please others."

" **And of course that's why my sister was so favored even after I did everything to please my father!** " Jareth snapped. " **I then used my powers as the Dark One to wreak havoc upon all the mortals until every single god and my father rallied against me, stripped me of my powers, and sentenced me to eternity in the Underground, leaving me no choice but to steal children and feed off their essences as they grew up being my slaves!** "

"You bastard!" Killian spat. "Even Peter Pan was better at you for stealing boys!"

" **Yes, I never liked Pan. So I was left to concoct a plan that would help me to regain both my powers as the Dark One and my immortality.** "

"And that's why you raped Svjetla and created Fitzgerald," Theresa said. She looked at Fitzgerald, who looked more terrified than ever.

" **So, this is the infamous Fitzgerald Denada Cortés.** " Jareth turned his attention back to his son. " **The Batrishan Prince Of Darkness, the Old War Hero Of Aldorada, the One Who Has Made Pacts With Five Immortals, The Crippled Vampire...or best known as FIDGET THE BAT. Tales of your cruelty have been transferred through my kingdom, but never did I imagine that it was actually the Batrishan hybrid that I sired!** "

"Gee, glad that I have a fan who actually wants to destroy me!" Fidget snapped sarcastically.

" **Oh, I don't want to destroy you.** " Jareth shook his head, making everyone confused until he clarified. " **I want to put** _ **this**_ **in you and then parasite your mind and soul so that I can reincarnate myself in your body, erasing whatever will you have in your soul, and destroy you from within while I destroy and rule, well, everything!** " He juggled a crystal ball with some sort of dark mist trapped inside. The heroes gasped when they recognized as a very familiar source of darkness.

"The darkness that creates the Dark One," Emma gasped. "I...We threw it away!"

"How do you _throw_ away darkness like it's a piece of garbage?" Theresa asked skeptically to the Savior.

" **Long story short, the Savior and her friends managed to extract the darkness when she got affected by it and they sealed it in a bottle that they threw it in a cavernous bottom beneath the town that leads straight to Tartarus** ," Jareth explained. He held on to the crystal ball like a child unwilling to share his toy and snickered in mock. " **The problem is that it got sidetracked by a rockslide and ended up going towards one of the tunnels that lead to my kingdom. My most faithful guard found it floating in the Bog Of Eternal Stench and brought it back to me. Let's just say that the darkness and I had a...friendly reunion.** " He then walked back to Fidget and once again gripped on the latter's hair, making Fidget yelp in agony. " **Naturally, because of the new laws my paternal created, I couldn't welcome the darkness back in my body, but I could repossess it if I force it in the body of my offspring with powerful godly ancestry and reincarnate myself in the Batrishan on the day the eclipse finally arrives.** "

"No kidding!" Fidget muttered. "Usually I'd go with a bottle of sangria to celebrate family reunions, but you are a complete lunatic!"

" **I'm glad you appreciate my evilness, but unlike you and a majority of these pathetic mortals, I don't believe in love**." The Evil One looked at Kaïra. " **You can relate to that, can't you, Kaïra?** " He then spotted the sickle spear in her hands and snatched it out of her. " **Laevateinn...I see you've been keeping it clean!** "

"So the rumors going on among the gods were true!" Anubis gasped and looked at Kaïra. "You did steal Laevateinn from Jareth in the Underground!"

"Mother...Is this true?" Theresa asked her mother, who looked too humiliated to answer.

" **Allow me to fill in for your weak godly mother** ," Jareth told Theresa cruelly. " **Just about a year after I caused the Batrishans' extinction, your mother turned sixteen and had to do this Asgardian coming of age ceremony to prove her worth among the gods, and Yggdrasil the Tree of Life was so fateful enough to give her the quest of fetching Laevateinn, this charming sickle spear that I'm holding right here.** " He waved the sickle spear he was holding.

"I apologize in advance, but what is so peculiar about this one sickle spear?" Killian asked bluntly.

"Mostly for creating earthquakes, opening the earth to unleash an army, or more diverse powers," Anubis explained to the pirate. "But no one can wield Laevateinn unless they are tricksters."

"How fitting," Fidget said while giving a bitter stare at his patroness.

" **Correct you are**." Jareth nodded. " **As the god able of twisting wishes and manipulating people, I 'granted' the wish of one of the guards who guarded Laevateinn back in its original vault in Asgard when the guard said he wished he didn't have to guard Laevateinn. So, I stole it.**

" **To speed the story up, Kaïra and four of Thor's spawn go to the Underground for Kaïra's quest to fetch the sickle spear, but I'm no fair player. I sped time before they could even solve my Labyrinth and had the group separated, the Thor offspring were sent off to be killed while I took Kaïra back as my captive for her essence.** "

All the villains and Anubis gasped at the mention of essence. "How dare you!" Maleficent exclaimed in disgust. "Stealing godly essence is the worst crime you godly people can commit!"

"Why, what does it do?" Mary Margaret asked, not really looking forward to hear the answer.

"It involves a god forcing a goddess to marry him without her consent and then violating her so that he can forever consume her godly essence, the worst part being that she'll still be alive and weak at his mercy." Anubis held Marion protectively in his arm. "When Jareth was banished to the Underground, he was forbidden to drink a single drop of nectar and eat a single bite of ambrosia, the food of the gods."

"And the food of the gods is essential for their survival," Mr. Gold filled in, "because when they start starving from no godly food, they proceed to feast on human essence."

"So that's why Jareth has been stealing children whenever someone wished to not have to deal with them!" David realized. "It was to make sure that he'd have essence to feast on!"

" **Precisely. They're still alive and aging, but their souls get trapped in my precious crystal balls that I archive and consume at every meal. Of course, feasting on godly essence was a better solution for my hunger.** " Jareth looked at Kaïra in sadistic hunger before going back to a bitter frown. " **But on the day I was to finally consume Kaïra's essence - make note that I had snacked on her godly essence- and I was on the verge of biting her to mark her as mine, I noticed an odor that wasn't hers. No, that odor had the scent of hybrid blood...** " He then looked at Fidget. " **Some of that blood belonged to your mother on the night I assaulted her.** "

Fidget's mouth dropped in horror as Jareth continued his story. " **The fact that I smelled your dead mother's blood and mine on Kaïra meant only one thing: that Kaïra held you in her arms and therefore knew what happened to you. I tried to force her to tell me your location, but she wouldn't out of pitiful love for you. Next thing you know, she escaped with Laevateinn, which he stole, and became a goddess of the dead while I had to spend eras hunting her down just so that I could find you and get my hands on her essence once and for all. I even had to destroy her husband and son while she ran off with your girlfriend.** " Jareth briefly grimaced at Theresa before going back to his son. " **Dating the daughter of your would-have-been-stepmother? You couldn't have gotten any lower.** "

"Any lower? _Any lower_?" Fidget snapped at him. "For my entire life, I thought that my biological parents abandoned me to save myself from your massacre and I cared less about who they were because I had an actual family, real friends, and a loving fiancée back in Aldorada who loved me, cared for me, and praised me as the hero I aspired to be for my country. But now, I see that the father who sired me is nothing but a jealous monster who killed a priestess just to make a weapon and exterminate an entire species just for one tantrum! You never were and never will be my father to my eyes!" The crystals shackling him were starting to crack, much to everyone's shock. "I am not the son of Jareth and Svjetla but the son of Hernan and Geneva Denada Cortés!" The cracks were getting bigger. "I'M FIDGET THE BAT!"

The crystals finally shattered, freeing Fidget, who instantly swung his peg leg at Jareth's face and sent the god crashing into a nearby tree. The crystal ball containing the darkness slipped out of his fingers. Quickly, Hermia flew and caught it before handing it to her father.

"Fitzgerald!" Theresa got up and ran to hug him. He returned the gesture.

" **YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH, BOY!** " Jareth got up and raised Laevateinn in the air before smashing it into the ground. The earth began to shake and cracks were starting to make their way towards town.

"He's trying to destroy the town!" Lily gasped.

"I...I think it's worse." Tristan pointed at the sea, which began to shake unnaturally once the cracks reached the port. Then, like magic, rocky walls bigger than mountains rose up from the ocean, making the water cascading down and lower its level as the ground continued to rise up and form one giant maze-like fortress crowned by a castle that completely dried out the ocean.

" _The Labyrinth_ ," Kaïra, still shackled, gasped.

"He rose it from the Underground!" Anubis exclaimed.

" **And I'm far from over!** " Jareth held Laevateinn in the air and send thunderbolts in the clouds, darkening them. " **Fidget the Bat, by the River Styx and every single blood of evil in my veins, Storybrooke will suffer even more than it will if you don't go to my castle at the heart of my Labyrinth with the darkness before the eclipse arrives! And don't worry, I'll make sure that your** _ **patroness**_ **pays dearly first**!" A cloud made of crystal shards surrounded him and Kaïra and made them disappear from the others.

"He's gone! And he's got my mother!" Theresa cried in fear. "I can't let my father's murder consume my mother's godly essence!"

"As much as I want to save my patroness and spare the town, I can't just walk in the Labyrinth with the darkness in my hands!" Fidget pointed at the crystal ball Bartok was holding. "It would be like giving Jareth a wrapped present!"

"It's...like the prophecy," Emma realized.

"'The race through time you must take to when the fate of balance has begun. The race through fate will be at stake and soon shall rise the Evil One.'" Killian quoted the prophecy before going back to Fidget. "You see what's happening, Fitzgerald? Your fate's at stake because your father is rising to power!"

"He's not my father," Fidget growled.

"'To when the fate of balance has begun,'" Tristan quoted. "That must have been when Rosetta and I went with the other pilgrims to the Batrishan Sanctuary! Because that's where the Batrishans got massacred the most ever since Briga took Fidget away when she found out the priests were after him!"

"And then the next lines say that 'after three centuries, the sun will darken again. From the underground the maze shall rise.'" Hermia pointed at the Labyrinth, which was impossible to ignore from the sight. "The eclipse is returning after three centuries on Fidget's 300th birthday and Jareth used Laevateinn to rise the Labyrinth from his kingdom in the Underground!"

"Gee, now I know how the Savior feels!" Fidget grumbled. Emma stared at him, shocked that he used her as comparison.

"And what about the last lines?" Hermia asked. "The ones about 'through crystals shall be heard the goddess and Batrishans scream in pain. From his crown, the Prince Of Darkness' evil will terrorize. The cursed dagger will bond with the dragon, who seeks her enslaver's demise and the loyalty of her heir. The worlds' town will face the agony as darkness, evil, and malevolence rule the air.'"

"Let's hope we stop Jareth first before the second half of the prophecy comes true." Fidget cracked his knuckles. "The only question right now is how to do it."

"The crystals."

Somebody who just spoke startled them. They turned and saw someone of the female species slouching on a tree and smirking at them. Her main clothing was a revealing latex corset, a black showgirl skirt, black stiletto biker boots, black diamond cuff bracelets that reached her elbows, black lipstick and fingernail polish, and black diamond earrings. Her hair was pulled up in a curly updo and she wore a black peacock mask worthy of a performer at the Rio Carnival.

"Somebody went nuts on the black." Fidget flinched.

"Not all of can be perfect, handsome." Romana pulled off her mask. "If you want to make your way through the Labyrinth, you'll need insider help. And I hate working for free, so let's hope you can pay."


	15. Deal With A Devil

FACING DESTINY

Deal With A Devil

"Romana..." Lily and Maleficent wanted to cry at the sight of their long-lost family member finally standing before them, in the flesh. Unfortunately for them, Romana moved her arm and summoned them away in black smoke before any of them could move an inch. The sight of her doing such an act shocked the heroes and Fidget.

"That was your mother and grandmother!" Mary Margaret said in shock.

"Do I look like I care?" Romana asked coldly as she made her way to Fidget, who stared stiffly at her. "Undesired relations with biological parents. You do know what it's like, am I right, Your Highness?"

"I'm not that bastard's princely son," Fidget retorted coldly.

"Yeah, it's not like you'll be king of the Labyrinth as well." Romana caressed the feathers of the mask she was still wearing. "Look, you and I share one thing in common: the desire to have Jareth's head in our wall so that our vengeful souls can finally be at ease. So, here is my proposal."

He put a hand before her as a halting sign. "Warning signal, I _do not_ do nights as ultimate choices." He shivered. "Midnight Sparkle has already given the creeps."

" _Relax_." Romana rolled her eyes. "Being stuck as Jareth's slave has made me cross off men above my generation." She went back to the topic. "No, this is my offer. I swear on the River Styx to guide you through the Labyrinth, avoid its traps, free your patroness and lead you to your father's fatal weakness...if you give me this." She pointed at the crystal imprisoning the darkness that Hermia was holding in her hands. Hermia flinched while her parents shielded her.

"Are you out of your mind?" Killian demanded. "Once that thing is unleashed, it will try to gain a host and Jareth is determined to force Fidget to get consumed by it so that Jareth can become the Dark One again!"

"Jareth is a doofus." Romana sneered. "He thinks that just because he has a son and can force him to let the darkness come in means that it will work. He doesn't even know the rule about resurrection through blood!"

"He doesn't?" Emma asked.

"Wait," Fidget cut in. "Are you saying that there's a way for me to... I'm just going to say 'not give Jareth what he wants' because the rest is a mouthful."

"Wise choice." Romana nodded. Faster than a blink, she appeared between Hermia and her parents and held the crystal-imprisoned darkness in her hands, admiring the thing as it moved and agitated like a bloody vein. "This creation of chaos may be to create evil and darkness, but it has _one_ limitation. That limitation is this: even if the host is willing to host the darkness, the darkness will not consume it if the host is expecting a child."

A cold breeze hit their spines despite the summer season. Tristan and Bartok looked at Fidget with blank stares of shock while he and Theresa looked as equally stunned. The latter put a hand on her stomach. "You can't be serious!" She told Romana.

"I swear on the River Styx that I ain't kidding," Romana said casually as if she were telling them instead that the whether was sunny with a chance of apocalypse. "You guys are expecting a baby."

Theresa stiffened and Fidget looked like he got his hair pulled by Jareth again while Anubis walked towards Theresa and cautiously leaned over so that his sharp hearing could listen what was going on inside Theresa's stomach. "No doubt about it," he said. "It's still in the first steps of evolving into an embryo and right now shows no sign of possible death factors..."

" _Death factors_?" Theresa gulped.

"There are death chances for a mortal mother if the baby has divine father, depending on who the parent is," Anubis said as he continued to check. "Add together you and Fidget sharing his eternal eternity in half and both of you are demigods...Ironically, this is one normal infant who should have a 99% chance of living."

"I don't know if I should be relieved or still traumatized..." Fidget sat on the table and rubbed his forehead. "I already have to deal with a psychotic god and now I accidentally made my girlfriend pregnant! And out of wedlock!"

"I didn't know you were still old-fashioned," Bartok joked with a hint of cruelty.

"Yes, the same way you don't know that you have to look right and left before getting hit by a car," Fidget replied coldly. He then took a breath. "Look, the baby problem can wait." He turned to Romana. "So because I am expecting a child, I can't become the Dark One? That's a relief."

"Good."

"Before I agree on your offer, may I just understand one thing?"

"Go for it."

"Why do you want the darkness?"

"Pretty simple," Romana said with a casual shrug. "I plan on becoming the Dark One."

They were all petrified when they heard what she just said. _I plan on becoming the Dark One_.

It hit Hermia first. "'The cursed dagger will bond with the dragon, who seeks her enslaver's demise and the loyalty of her heir'," she quoted the line from the prophecy. "That's what it meant! Romana wants to get back at Jareth by becoming the Dark One herself!"

"Romana, you can't do this!" Emma said. "Jareth seems like someone you don't like, but..."

"I don't dislike him, Emma Swan." Romana snapped her fingers and a small golden idol of Jareth appeared in her hand and ended up melting from the magic flames that grew from her fingers. " _Aborrezco por completo_!" She threw the melted idol on the ground and stomped on it with her shoes, staining them like golden blood. "I was six when my _papa_ was murdered, a stratagem developed by my twisted _tío_ who was after the entire family fortune that my father was to inherit as the first born. Naturally, despite me being a bastard child, my _abuelos_ preferred that the first-born and any of his family inherited the fortune rather than their second-born son, so I was meant to inherit the fortune. While the police was busy with my _papa_ 's corpse, my _tío_ kidnapped me and wished to dispose of me as soon as he could. He didn't even say out loud a sentence starting with 'I wish', but that didn't stop Jareth from breaking out of the Underground for a few minutes and offer to lighten the load for my _tío_ by taking me away! So yes, I want to get back at Jareth!"

All the heroes blinked, having a hard time registering what she just said, especially since not many of them took Spanish as a second language.

Fidget sighed drily. "Her uncle tried to dispose of her and her father in order to inherit the grandparents' money, but instead of being killed like her father, she ended up being part of a slave offering to Jareth."

"But, if you're upset about your uncle for being responsible for your situation, then why are you lashing at Jareth than the other guy?" Marion asked.

"Marion!" Mary Margaret exclaimed.

"What? I had a cousin who tried to kill me for being the family favorite!"

"My _tío_ was already disposed off after I poisoned him with peach juice from Jareth's grove, so he's no longer my problem," Romana said. "What would really please me is to rub my triumph at Jareth for his second loss, to watch him dissolve into ash for good as he sees that his abused lackey became the thing that ruined him in the first place." She rubbed the crystal holding the darkness captive as if it were a puppy. "Besides, the prophecy makes it clear that I will become the Dark One and get back at my master." She then turned to Fidget and held out her hand. "So, do we get a deal?"

"Just to be clear," he said sternly. "We'll give you the darkness _only_ if you help us defeat Jareth by guiding through his Labyrinth towards whatever weakness he has. Is that clear?"

"On the River Styx, I understand." She smiled as they shook hands. Thunder boomed and the sound of distant rocks tumbling was heard. "Sounds like Jareth and Kaïra are having a clash back in his castle."

Theresa rushed to face Romana. "Romana, what will Jareth do to my mother?" she asked. "Is he...is he going to _feast on her essence_?"

"The guy must have one twisted stomach to do such a thing," Regina said.

"Knowing Jareth, he'll want to get his permanent hold on a godly essence as soon as he can," Anubis said as he looked at the massive maze that was now the biggest thing this town had ever seen while black clouds hovered above it. "Once a god is deprived of nectar and ambrosia, like Jareth is, he must feast on the essence of mortals as they grow until they die. Jareth always went with children since they were the youngest, but if he were to consume godly essence, he will be back to his original status: unable to be killed."

"Which leads to an important point," Romana said. She showed the crystal holding the darkness. Speaking of which, the size of it was the equivalent of one's hand. "This is crystal is one of the millions that Jareth owns. They were originally crafted in the mines of the Underground by its original goblin inhabitants before Jareth came for his exile and kicked them out to the Fae Realm."

Emma and Mary Margaret glanced at each other. The original goblins of the Underground were banished into the Fae Realm? So that probably meant that their old friend the Bog King was one of the descendants.

"Once he took over the Underground, Jareth created his own goblin servants born from the dying bodies of some of the children he stole and sucked the essence at the beginning. The Labyrinth is his fortress protecting his minions' city, his castle, and most importantly, the chamber where he holds all his crystals."

"But what's so important about those crystals other than the fact that he uses him for chaining or trapping people?" Fidget asked in a tone indicating that he was on the verge of losing his patience.

"It's _precisely_ that!" Romana gave congratulating thumbs up to Fidget. "The crystals hold the godly magic he has left and each of them holds the trapped soul of each child, goblin, or whatever creature he has chained to his orders. I barely got lucky to smash mine months ago."

"It's _that_ hard?" Tristan asked.

"OK, Hollywood didn't lie _a little bit_ that the room right below Jareth's throneroom is entirely made of M.C Escher staircases..."

"Who's this Escher person?" Killian frowned. To answer his question, Fidget snapped his fingers and a purple, holographic image of the infamous reality warping staircases. "Bloody Hell."

"It gets worse." Romana said, her voice tensing. "There's not a specific path in this maze of stairs that leads straight to the area you want. Each staircase leads to a different area of the Crystal Room, but not the entire thing. Many have gotten themselves lost when trying to get to the specific area they want."

"Just to be clear," Fidget said. "All the crystals are Jareth's weakness?"

"Yep."

"Great!" Fidget clasped his hands together in optimism. "We just go through each area and destroy all the crystals as we go! Easy!"

"Not so fast, there." Romana made a stop hand signal. "Jareth isn't an idiot. He also placed booby crystals that explode if you mistake it for an actual crystal. Secondly, you got a little inherited problem." She tapped Fidget's hands, making him pull them away as fast as he could. "With Jareth's obsession with crystals, you have a link with him. Because you touched the Crystal Chalices, he was able to trace your presence."

"God, my mother's chalices!" Theresa searched the table, her pocket, and everyone else. She dropped on her knees and screamed. "JARETH TOOK THEM WITH HIM!"

"You should have thought better than to use them," Mr. Gold said. "Those chalices have very powerful matrimonial magic that unites a married couple for life whenever they drink from them during their marriage. Should Jareth force Kaïra to drink from it, she will never be able to try to flee and escape him. She'll be doomed for life even more, and it only makes it worse since Jareth will have his godly essence."

"How long do you reckon we have until Jareth decides to get himself some godly essence?" Belle asked Romana.

"Frankly, it could be at any moment," Romana admitted. "But knowing Jareth, he wants it to be on a date that will be meaningful to him. Once that date comes, he won't be relying on the crystals for survival any longer. It would have to be on..."

"The day of the eclipse." Fidget looked up at the sky. The sun was starting to get covered by the moon at an inch. "Jareth expects me to hand myself over to him by the time the eclipse comes. If he thinks he'll be able to make me his host for the Dark One transformation, he'll obviously want to rub Kaïra with her humiliating defeat by first making her watch me die and then force her on the altar."

"Rather makes sense." Romana nodded in agreement. "The first time he tried to take Kaïra's godly essence, it was on the one year anniversary of the last time the eclipse came. Of course, back then, he had no idea she knew your existence and she didn't know you were his son."

"I'm not his son and I never will be." Fidget looked at the Labyrinth up ahead and clenched his fists. "The only thing I want is to get rid of him and not live the rest of my existence with this parasite following me like a shadow."

"Wisely said." They looked to see who spoke and it was Tristan. The squire made his way through the humans and, much to Fidget's shock, and knelt before him as a sign of sudden respect. Bartok, feeling like he had no choice, took Hermia by the hand and had her do the same thing as Tristan and bow with him. "I made a vow to my father and the rest of the surviving Batrishans in Camberley to find the son of Svjetla and Jareth and ensure that he'd avenge our people's genocide by bringing down the Evil One."

"What are you..."

"We'll follow thee to the end...Prince Fitzgerald of the Batrishans."

 _Meanwhile, in a cave deep in the forest_

Rosetta popped her eyes open from her long meditation. It felt like she had been sitting in a lotus position by that small cavern pool for days, yet it had only been hours. Her mind had woken up from meditation when she saw the vision of Fidget going to the Labyrinth.

"Be careful, Fidget," she said quietly as she got up. Her legs felt unusually heavy and Rosetta nearly fell face first into the pool until her hands caught the rocky ground and supported her weight long enough for her to put herself in a kneeling position.

That's when she saw her reflection and gasped, forcing her hands to explore her face and the rest of her body. What happened while she was meditating? Because the last time she recalled, she started meditating in her usual eight-year-old body and not in the sixteen-year-old body she found herself in. No doubt about it, she still had black hair with red streaks, but it was longer, darker, and reached the bottom of her thighs. Her facial and other physical features were approximately close to her mother's, but her eyes were beginning to look more like the eyes her father had in the Ancient Egyptian carvings and her normal, modern day clothes were starting to turn into loose, silk Egyptian priest robes, and fitting golden jackal-based bracelets and belt.

"Gods, I'm aging. Why is this happening?" Rosetta gasped.

" **That would be my doing.** "

Rosetta turned her head. Goblins bursted their way into the cavern and surrounded her, leaving her trapped and only capable of screaming when she saw Jareth throwing a crystal at her.


	16. Cold Dish of Lust and Rebels

FACING DESTINY

Cold Dish of Lust and Rebels

" _Let go of me_!" Kaïra struggled viciously as Jareth forced her into the throneroom of his castle. She never thought she'd end up in this horrible place again and have to smell the air filled with Jareth's intense scent. As she continued to fight against his tight grasps, she mentally begged that he wouldn't take her to her old cell and force her back in skimpy slave gear only to tear it off and leave her revealed body at Jareth.

He didn't take her back to her cell. Instead, he took her straight to his dark throne, which looked more like a couch made out of human bones for the sociopath he was to slouch in rather than a strict throne that she had seen other villains sit on.

Jareth snapped his fingers. A long, rusty chain appeared and tied Kaïra's wrists to the throne. The Evil One left the goddess wide eyed as he silently traced the outline of her coat and forced it to unravel, showing that underneath the large jacket she wore, Kaïra also had a dark green summer slip dress on her.

He chuckled to himself, which creeped Kaïra even further as he carried her in his arms as if he had already married her and sat down on his throne with her on his laps. No matter how much she tried, he wouldn't let go of her. Disturbingly, he had her well confined by having one hand clutch the area underneath her breasts and the other hand just above the area he had dreams of. " **I'm** _ **really**_ **going to enjoy this** ," he licked his lips.

" _Don't get any ideas, Jareth!_ " She hissed. " _As much as you want my godly essence, you still need me as a virgin if you want your spell to be a success. Naturally, it will fail._ "

" **True**." He shrugged casually until his hands squeezed on her areas, making her more in pain and more determined to get the chains off her. " **But you hid my creation from me for 300 years, delaying my plan. As much as I would love to see the look on your face when I destroy the Batrishan, claim his newly lost powers, and then force you into a life where I will be your sole necessity, you must still pay.** " He blinked and a crystal floated towards them. With the pinkie of the hand grasping her nether regions, he tapped the smooth glass and suddenly, for a few seconds, Kaïra could feel her regions getting unusually warm. The crystal then had an image appearing in it: a lily flower with an unusual color that matched...Kaïra's eyes.

It didn't take long for Kaïra to realize that Jareth had somehow managed to pull out her virginity and conserve it.

" **I am the one who gave Bluebeard's power to use female virginity to gain eternal life, so I can easily conserve a female's virginity and return it to her as I choose.** "

Kaïra shook her head in horror. " **Yes, Kaïra. We'll be practicing our nuptial night before the wedding.** " He pulled her closer to him as he slouched even further in his throne. " **Which position should we use? Missionary, so that I can see you being oppressed by me? Doggy, so that I can literally have your superior kneeling before me? Or perhaps the Woman on Top, so that I can see your chest wiggle as I force my way into you?** "

" _NEITHER!_ " She threw her leg at his groin, hoping to unstabilize him, but he was too quick and ended up catching her thigh, at the same time pulling off her boots, leggings, and underwear, showing off her bare legs.

" **I almost forgot these** ," Jareth snickered as he lifted one of her legs by force and caressed it. " **Still smooth and young...** "

" _You disgust me_." Kaïra filled her mouth with saliva and spit it right on Jareth's face, which only provoked him even further. With the hand he had under her chest area, he grabbed the collar of her dress and forcefully brought it down to Kaïra's nether regions, causing the fabric to rip and reveal her bare skin all the way to her navel. She bit her teeth as his hand holding her leg went down her skirt and behind to give each of her buttocks a squeeze as if they were fresh oranges rather than body organs while he let his other hand moved to her chest and shook and squeezed each of them in a similar fashion.

" **Quite amazing how you're still having after giving labor twice**." His mouth gave an evil grin at her. " **I wonder how full you are**."

" _Jareth, don't...GAAAAAH_!" Kaïra screamed once he squeezed both breasts with his hands and sucked each nipple so quickly and with such greed, Kaïra could feel her energy being drained out of chest and into his selfish mouth. Even her own children weren't this greedy when she had to breastfeed them until they were six months old.

After her godly essence had been sucked on, she then got her lips crushed by his own. Add together the remains of breast milk still sticking on his lips and whatever saliva he could find in her mouth and drink, it was one disgusting way to consume godly essence.

" _You're revolting_ ," Kaïra said once he was done, only to get forced with another kiss. Jareth grabbed her remaining fabric and ripped it off, revealing her tantalizing body.

" **And you, my dear pumpkin, have a very pink, plump, tender, lush, and supple body**." He got up and threw her back in the throne, which now turned into a large bed. Kaïra's eyes widened at the sight of its size and got larger when she saw Jareth removing his own pants and straightening his belt in his hands as if it were a whip.

" **So about the positions...** " He began to say as his shadow menacingly walked over to her.

 _Minutes later, in a dungeon_

Rosetta couldn't tell what made her uncomfortable the most: sitting on the floor beneath her cage's bars with her overgrown body, or hearing a goddess' piercing screams for almost ten minutes?

It was bad enough (from her perspective) that she got magically turned into twice her age without even dealing with the first hormones of puberty. It was worse enough that she was stuck in a cage that looked like the top of a metal birdcage rooted to the stone floor as if it were nature's design, which put her in the need to sit in a ball.

It was terrifying enough that, even though she could only physically hear Kaïra's scream echoing all over the walls, her advanced foresight forced her to see the divine torture. She hugged herself even tighter when she saw the images of Kaïra pinned to the bed and kicking desperately when Jareth grabbed her wrists, pulled them away from one another, and drilled his way through her. Rosetta lowered her head closer to her elbows when Jareth then flipped a traumatized, energy-dried out Kaïra over so that her stomach kissed the bed sheets and his evil hands nearly pierced through her hips' skin when he pulled them towards him even more.

Rosetta whimpered a lot when her visions showed the villain laying in bed this time, pushing the goddess towards him and making her scream when she 'penetrated' him, barely giving her time to breathe when he pushed her out just to end up pushing her back in like breathing pumps.

Keep in mind that while Rosetta had advanced foresight powers and now the physique of someone twice her age, she still had the innocence of a young child. A normal child of her age shouldn't be forced to hear someone being torture via rape. That is how bad people manage to break the spirits of children: by forcing them to witness or hear adults suffering unimaginable tortures, acting as reminders to children that this could happen to the children as well once they grow up.

A grunting noise followed by approaching footsteps alerted her. "Who's there?" she asked.

"An ally," an old, cranky voice said. Rosetta held out her hand and created a glowing flame. Lit by the light of her fire was a dwarf standing in front of her cage.

"I can't believe it," Rosetta said. "You're Hoggle the Dwarf."

He nodded his head. "Glad to see somebody else who knows me full name." He tapped a rugged finger on the bars of her cage like a child would tap on a xylophone, causing the bars to sink into the ground one by one and creating a small hole for Rosetta to crawl through without difficulty.

"Thanks." She stretched herself once she got up. Pain overwhelmed her entire body. "Wow. I never knew that being so tall could be a pain."

"Well, I'm glad that I'm just a dwarf." He motioned her to follow him. "C'mon, we've got to get out of the dungeons until the Betrayers find out you escaped."

"The Betrayers?" Rosetta used her flame to light the way for Hoggle as he led her towards a dark corridor. The staircase in it was rather medieval, which meant that Rosetta and Hoggle had to be careful for each missed step could lead them to slip down into darkness and possible capture. And Rosetta _definetly_ didn't want to go back in her cage.

"The Betrayers is a term used among Jareth's slaves to refer to those who gave up," Hoggle said. The further they walked into darkness, the more water dripped on the steps in a ticking pattern, making the steps even more slippery.

"Why can't I see anything?" Rosetta blinked. "Usually I can see anything with my powers, but I can't see anything about those Betrayers."

"Jareth's been tight on security ever since Kaïra outsmarted the Labyrinth with her wits," Hoggle explained. "Because of that, all magic other than Jareth's is nullified once they step into the dreadful maze. As for them Betrayers, they are former victims of Jareth. Victims that have failed to beat Jareth at his own game and have given up all resistance against him. All of them guards are Betrayers. Jareth had them in his clutches and they became his slaves for life after admitting defeat in his game."

Rosetta wrinkled her nose. "His game... That must be Jareth's emotional weakness."

"I thought his crystals were his weakness." They reached a dead end. Hoggle tapped on the wall like he was knocking out the shape of a door, which is exactly the shape that the area he tapped took. The duo walked through the opening that closed behind them, leading into a dark chamber lit by a small bonfire. Aside from the two of them, the only people currently in this room were a giant fluffy creature and a small fox creature in a medieval uniform.

"Sir Didymus and Ludo!" Rosetta greeted them by giving Ludo a big hug, causing the creature to mumble something about Rosetta now being its friend, and allowed Didymus to kiss her hand like the knight he thought he was.

"A pleasure to finally meet the daughter of Anubis," he said.

"She's know part of the Resistance against Jareth." Hoggle nodded.

"The Resistance?" Rosetta looked at the dwarf. "You mean Jareth's slaves are starting to rise against him."

"Rumor has it that the Goblin King's son dares to challenge the king's power and save what he believes is right!" Didymus said proudly. "No wonder Fitzgerald Denada Cortés was a great warrior back in his day!"

"Fidget!" Rosetta slapped herself on the forehead. "That's why he captured me! He knows that Fidget and I have such an odd, yet strong bond close to that of siblings! Everytime I'm in danger, Fidget always drops everything and comes to save me! Jareth is using me to lure Fidget into his clutches!"

"Isn't his patroness also in the King's clutches?" Didymus asked in confusion.

"Yeah, but Fidget doesn't really like her." Rosetta shrugged.

Hoggle sighed and sat down on the cold floor, looking at the flames cracking in front of him. "It's Sarah all over again," he shook his head sadly. "The moment she accidentally wished her baby brother Toby away to Jareth, she forgot her disdain for her brother and risked her life to save him and solve the Labyrinth."

"She was a very strong mortal," Rosetta said sincerely as she sat down next to Hoggle.

"She was also the only other woman besides Kaïra that Jareth fancied," Hoggle said. "The only difference is that while he mistreated Kaïra as they were both gods, he tried to goad Sarah with sweet words, fancy party illusions, and the promise to be loved by him as his Queen if she were to give up his quest."

"Sarah...strong," Ludo growled.

"Aye, she was. Not as strong as a god, but brave enough to declare him unable to harm her and release her brother. We used to communicate through mirrors once in a while to see how she and Toby were doing?"

"Have you tried asking her to join the Resistance?" Rosetta asked, thinking that someone who personally defeated Jareth would be a great ally.

"I tried and failed," Hoggle sighed. "Sarah still remembered her adventures in the Labyrinth, but she moved on and refused to have those dark memories poison her life. She's now close to her late thirties, married, raising two children, and teaching literature in a British school. When I tried asking her to join us, she told me as gently as she could that, to keep her family safe, she'd best not get involved. That was the last time I ever spoke to her."

"I'd say it was shortly before the casting of the second Dark Curse," Didymus said.

"So not too long ago," Rosetta said. "I can't blame her. After what her brother nearly went through, I can't imagine her letting her kids suffer the same thing." She put herself in a Lotus position and tried to think, which got her back to her topic about weaknesses. "Like you said, Hoggle, it's true that Jareth's physical weakness are his crystals once you start crushing him, but he also has an _emotional_ weakness."

"Is that so?" Hoggle arched an eyebrow.

"Yes. You've seen what he does. Once somebody dares to challenge him and his maze in order to save a soul, Jareth can't help himself but let them go through twists and turns full of traps born from his own twisted mind until they either give up or run out of time. For Jareth, people running his Labyrinth is like a game for him. He seems to find such a game amusing and distracting."

"Distracting!" Didymus exclaimed. "Milady, are thy suggesting that we distract the master of the Labyrinth himself by using one of his own games?"

"Think about it," she said. "He'll be so busy with his game and tossing around crystals to create his traps, he won't notice a pair of intruders spying on him going into his vault of crystals..."

"Rounding them up and smashing them!" Hoggle finished for her. "The slaves will be freed and Jareth will be gone!"

"Right." Rosetta smiled. "And since _we_ are in the castle, we can sneak into the vault while Jareth is busy with his own party of newcomers." She sighed and started meditating, her body glowing with a golden light of mystical hieroglyphics. "And I know just the outside team to contact.


	17. There's No Such Thing As Left Turns

FACING DESTINY

There's No Such Thing As Left Turns

Two teams had been split. One went to alert the town to stay on guard in case the Evil One decided to invade Storybrooke, the other went to confront Jareth head on in the Labyrinth. The team that went to the Labyrinth consisted of Fidget, Killian, Bartok, Tristan, Emma, Regina, David, Anubis, and their guide Romana.

"Do you always have to change outfits?" Regina scolded Romana, who was now wearing a black leather halter dress, black high-heeled boots that went all the way up to her hips, black vine bracelets that coiled around her arms, and a black plague mask, making her look like a lethal bird.

"My problem if I want to walk around like this," Romana shrugged. She led them straight to the port, where they found all the water dried out and replaced by a massive wall of stone. The Labyrinth's outer fortress really made the town feel insignificant.

"So, how do we get in this bloody thing?" Killian asked. "It's not like there's a door or something..."

"Things are not what they appear to be here." Romana walked on the nearest catwalk that met a dead end with the giant fortress. The others looked at her, wondering why on earth she'd be walking straight into a wall of stone...until they saw her make a right turn and disappear behind the wall. Intrigued, they followed her and saw that she was walking up a flight or carved stairs.

"That is some way to hide the front door," Fidget grumbled. His peg leg made clamping the stone stairs, echoing against the walls and getting a response back with the wind hissing.

"Great. He knows you're here." Romana glared at Killian. "Your ex just _had_ to slice off his leg." The pirate said nothing. Romana suddenly made a right turn, leading them into a flat, straight pathway.

"But...this can't be right! I didn't see this platform from outside!" Regina said.

"It's worse!" They looked at Tristan, who was crazily putting his hand over the wall that seemed to have replaced the entrance they came through, as if there never was a staircase. Only Romana stayed calm.

"It's just the Labyrinth," she said. "Even though Jareth has power over it, it has its own mind with a sole goal: preventing anyone from the outside to reach the castle." She put a hand on one of the walls and closed her eyes. "You can even hear it when it breathes.  
Fidget stayed stiff. His ears perked. "Why I am I hearing multiple heartbeats through the cement?"

"You're Jareth's son," Anubis said matter-of-factly. "If the Labyrinth is linked to Jareth, it's linked to you."

"Don't remind me." Fidget grimaced as they walked ahead. Killian looked at him in sympathy. He could relate with what his old friend was going through: discovering that all this time, you were abandoned because your father was nothing but a beast. "I hope my mistress is making it through..."

"With Jareth?" Romana snorted. "He might as well be measuring her waist to figure out which wedding dress fabric to use." She made another right turn, which led them to a massive green haze maze. She pointed above and ahead of the maze, where they could spot a large stone castle. "There's the castle at the heart of the Goblin City. That's Jareth's lair."

"So, what do we do?" Emma asked. "Take endless left turns until we find the city?"

Romana laughed, making the vines on her bracelets move despite the wind not blowing. "You're weird for a Savior. Humans make maze solving so simple by only taking left turns. Only a _god_ like Jareth would twist that solution so that any mortal would get lost for the next thirteen hours until they accidently land in the Bog Of Eternal Stench. That's why there's no such thing as left turns in the Labyrinth."

"And I thought I was done with Wonderland and its riddles," Regina muttered.

"We'll use only right turns. They'll eventually lead us to Slave Valley. The people there have tunnels that lead straight to the Goblin City."

"Aside from the name difference, what's the major difference between the Goblin City and the Slave Valley?" Fidget asked. Romana gave him a sincere sad look, which gave him no second doubts. "You actually lived there."

"Slave Valley is where the non-natural goblins are forced to live. Those who lost all chances of defeating Jareth and failing to solve his Labyrinth," Romana said. "The stolen children who got turned into children, the rare survivors of the Batrishan Genocide, the abused monsters...even some of the Junkyard hags, who were once young girls who failed to solve the maze and free their baby brothers, live in Slave Valley. One of the Junkyard hags raised me as her own sibling in her house until I hit my teenage years and Jareth disposed of her while he made me his personal errands girl." She put a hand on the mask she wore. "She and her younger brother were part of a circus family, but then a fire killed the entire troupe and their parents. They were later adopted from an orphanage by an abusive innkeeper who had her work in the kitchen and her brother chop firewood. Because their guardian constantly belittled the younger brother, she'd cheer him up by putting on masks like those they wore at the circus and made him laugh." Romana smirked a bit at the thought of it until it faded.

"One day, the innkeeper caught the brother carving a mask out of wood for his sister's upcoming birthday rather than chop. He dragged him into the kitchen, threw the mask into the fire, and wished that the goblins would just rid him of these useless children. Jareth came, but since he can only take one child whenever he's summoned, he planned on taking the brother instead."

"So the sister dared to solve the Labyrinth in order to get him back," Regina guessed. They passed a row of statues showing Jareth in his self-adoring nature whipping goblins. "And she failed."

"Yes." Romana nodded. "The brother turned into a goblin who completely forgot he had a sister and the sister was turned into a hag reluctantly covered with trinkets of her pasts burdening her back like garbage. When Jareth placed me in her care after he captured me, I was still crying from my father's murder, so she used one of her mask trinkets to entertain me like she did with her brother. I wear masks as a reminder of the sole person who truly cared for me ever since I lost my father."

"I can imagine your pain," Fidget said sympathetically.

"And unfortunately, I believe you," Romana said. She led them further into the green maze. It was rather weird walking in it. The further they reached the center of the green maze, the more it looked like Storybrooke was turning upside down because the green maze was leaning in while gravity did not affect them.

"Why do you say 'unfortunately'?" Emma asked Romana.

"Because Fidget the Bat isn't like all the light-headed idiots who try to give you fake sympathy just to make you feel better of your problems!" Romana turned to face Emma. Her mask had turned back into a Venetian carnival masks. "I've spent years dealing with people, Underground or Aboveground natives, who keep insisting that they're sorry I have such a horrible life and they really understand what's going on! When Jareth sees a prey among his victims that he finds particularly luring, he makes it his business to ensure that he makes his or her life a living hell!" She pointed a finger at Fidget. "His life was automatically labeled as bound to go wrong the moment everyone found out his mother was raped by the Evil One after she wished to have a great child with her fiancé, and when she died during labor, her ex-fiancé and the other Batrishan Priests made a go for his head. Fidget's maternal family tried to smuggle him out of the city and Jareth started lashing out at everyone, particularly at the priests for trying to kill his son."

"Honestly, I can't blame them for trying to kill me," Fidget said bitterly.

"Even if you don't blame them, they had no right." Anubis put a hand on Fidget's shoulder. "The pagan clergy of every known culture have made the vow to not provoke the gods' wrath by getting their pre-mature demigod offspring harmed. Long tradition short, the Batrishan priests had no right to lash out at a newborn infant, especially since you're mother was a descendant of their worshipped god Ashiva. Even if they were angered that Jareth caused the death of your mother, their irresponsibility would have spared lives."

"So you're saying they _should_ have just handed me over to that creep?" Fidget shoved the god's hand away from him. Before Anubis could say anything, a distant sound of footsteps was heard approaching their location.

"Hide!" Romana instantly had the heroes and Batrishans hide behind a green hedge. They peaked through the leaves as somebody came over. Romana sighed in relief when she saw a sixteen-year-old girl coming towards her. "Phew, it's just you, Crystal."

"Hey, Rome." The girl was close to Fidget's height, only she looked like a fair Caucasian girl. She wore an open black and purple glittered princess coat over a beige brown ruffled dress decorated with a purple waist belt and matching ribbons, purple ends, and a violet maze pattern, high-heeled boots made of four different layers of purple, a purple bead necklace, blue flower dangling earrings, and a crystal crown that stood on her lime blonde hair tied up in a messy ponytail. "How's the royal pain?"

"Suffocating Pale Face by having his servants try out different waist ribbons for the big day." Crystal grumbled and looked up at the sky, where they could see the moon getting closer to the sun. "I just can't believe him. What's the point of having me around if I'm not even worth it? It's not like my mom's from some ancient civilization or a goddess he wants to have for dinner!"

"Your mom's one of the crystal spirits..." Romana quickly looked around to make sure that none of the goblin army was around to hear them. "Any news of Hoggle and the rebellion?"

"They apparently got an ally in the demigod daughter of that jackal god," Crystal said. Anubis and the others silently exchanged confused looks. Since when was Rosetta a member of the rebellion?

"I already know she's on my side." Romana rolled her eyes. "She wasn't quite happy about hiding the details of the prophecy to...you know."

"You don't get it." Crystal shook her head. "My father _captured_ that all-seeing weirdo. She was locked up in the dungeon. My father was too busy having his way with Pale Face, he didn't realize that Hoggle snuck the demigod girl out of jail and let her join in our resistance. In fact, last I heard of the dwarf, their planning on raiding the crystal chamber while my father gets distracted dealing with the heroes once they get inside the Labyrinth."

" _My daughter's in Jareth's castle?_ " Anubis jumped out of the hedge and turned into his jackal form to pin down Crystal. The others rushed out of hiding. David and Killian instantly pulled the god away from Crystal, who instantly found herself with Fidget's sword blade touching her neck.

"Why did your father kidnap Rosie?" Fidget snarled.

"I think you mean _our_ father." Crystal slapped the blade away from her neck. She bent on her toes, gently lifted up her skirt, and curtsied. "Crystal Maze, princess of the Goblin City, and Jareth's _other_ demigod offspring. Which makes you and I paternal half-siblings."

Fidget dropped his sword in shock.

"Fitzgerald is your brother?" Killian was equally shocked.

"Well, you don't see that everyday," Regina said. "Then again, who'd think that the Evil Queen and the Wicked Witch wouldn't be half-sisters..."

"But if you're also a child of the Evil One," Emma asked, "how come we never heard of you?"

"Evidently, I'm just a walking display!" Crystal snapped. "Fidget's mother and patroness weren't the only women Jareth played with! It happens at least once every decade, when a young woman is desperate to save the younger sibling that got wished away to the goblins, she'll offer anything to the Goblin King if he spared her sibling. If that woman appeared to be beautiful to his tastes, he'd ravish her to the point where she killed herself and her unborn fetus to spare it from a fate worse than death. Naturally, Jareth was getting tired of all these women getting rid of his children, he pulled me out of my mother's womb and continued my development by encasing me in a crystal until I was ready to be born. My mother was killed instantly and became the last woman he ever impregnated."

"So you're named after the crystal you were born from?" Tristan asked.

"Don't get any ideas." Crystal shook her head. "Even as princess and hash tag heir to the throne, he still doesn't see me of any worth. Not like my oldest sibling." She briefly looked at Fidget. "I know that once he gets the two things he wants, Jareth will see no more reason of having me around and will kill me when he gets the chance."

"Welcome to the club of worst paternal of the year." Fidget shook his head. "Where's Rosie?"

Crystal arched an interested eyebrow. "You're really more interested in knowing where your friend is rather than stumbling upon your half sibling."

"I could care less if you were a sibling or just a mook of Jareth's," Fidget said coldly. "I was fine living a life without knowing my biological parents until he butted in."

Crystal turned to Romana. "At least he's got a better attitude than the father. No wonder the demigod freak likes him." She pulled a pair of purple gloves out of her coat's pocket and put them over her hands before forming them as a circle. A crystal ball appeared in her hands.

"I see you have your father's touch." Anubis scowled.

"Only for summoning things. He won't allow me to lock in essences because he thinks only _he_ deserves it." She tossed the ball five feet away from them. A white stone table with a complete scent of tea and cupcakes appeared. "I have to be cautious, though. One mere touch on my skin and he knows where I am and what I'm doing."

"Apparently it's a genetic disease." Fidget and the other two Batrishans dared to accept some teacups full of steaming oolong tea.

"His father managed to trace him the mere moment Fitzgerald touched the Crystal Chalices," Killian explained. "He also stole them to make sure he and Kaïra are..."

"Bonded for life." Crystal drank from her own cup and threw the cup on the ground. Porcelain shards fell all over the ground. "Do you honestly take me for a ditzy princess? I'm part of the rebellion, for crying out loud! My dress is BROWN!" She shook the ends of her dress, agitating the ruffles, to emphasize her point.

"Crystal!" Romana covered Crystal's mouth. "Need I remind you that the Goblin King has goblins near every inch of this labyrinth? Let's just head to Slave Valley and discuss this along the way!"

Crystal nodded. Without saying anything, she shoved everything off the white stone table, shattering even more porcelain. She started pushing the table with her bare hands, and when that seemed too heavy for her, David and Tristan helped her push it out of the way. A tunnel with a stone staircase heading downwards revealed itself once they fully pushed the table out of the way.

"Seriously, I hate this place!" Regina exclaimed in exasperation. "Can't I just use magic to teleport us..."

"NO!" Romana and Crystal shook their hands. Regina held herself back.

"The mere use of outside magic or any that doesn't belong to Jareth will upset the Labyrinth!" Crystal walked first inside the tunnel, with the others following her right behind. Flames popped up one by one on the walls, illuminating them as they walked through this smooth cavern. Some looked at the walls' odd cracks that looked very much like human blood veins. Fidget grabbed his head once it suddenly started throbbing. "Your Highness?" Tristan asked out of concern.

"Fitzgerald, what's wrong?" Killian reached out for his pained friend.

"So much throbbing...veins pumping...IT'S KILLING ME!" Fidget said. Crystal shoved something in his mouth, a white pill that suddenly eased his headache. "Thank you."

"Normally, the painkillers shouldn't be consumed if you haven't spent at least a full year in the Labyrinth, but I pitied you," Crystal said. "The Labyrinth is starting to give you a migraine."

"I'll say." Regina rolled her eyes.

"It's more than that," Romana said. "Aside from just controlling the Labyrinth, the Evil One is literally bounded to this creature." She rubbed her right hand on one of the walls. "This entire Labyrinth is a living organism. Each wall, each tunnel, each hedge, and natural and mineral things in this place make the mind and body of the Labyrinth. Without a magic wielder to control it with his magic, it is only rumble that disappears."

"So the tunnels...are they like its blood veins?" Emma asked. "And Jareth's castle is the heart, with the crystal chamber acting as the source of all the blood and oxygen?"

"Pretty much." Crystal nodded. "But the price for being the master of the Labyrinth is that your life force is linked with the maze itself. Aside from his own selfish reasons, my father needs his strengths from stolen essences in order to keep the two of them alive."

"Another good reason why he needs Kaïra's godly essence out of pure desire," Anubis concluded. "He might as well make the maze eternally immortal itself."

Fidget's ears perked up, as if he received an idea. "Maybe we shouldn't rush off to Slave Valley. Not yet, that is."

"You have a plan?" Killian asked.

"Well, based on Crystal's claims on the maze being a living entity and from what I remembered back in my days when I was a mere soldier in the Aldoradian army..."

"The footage Jareth managed to collect of your days in the army was EPIC!" Crystal geeked. "The battle against Avalor? How you led the troops to battle and managed to slice the doors of the enemy's fortress with your sword led you to the ranking of First Class Navy Sergeant!"

"Excellent reference of the Layered Attack!" Fidget pointed out. "That was actually the longest war I had to go through. Close to a month and a half. My father and I were worried about how we'd get through battle without wasting so many soldiers. The Avalor army was rather ruthless: they always threw in the weakest men first, and when the competition was busy dealing with the bait, they'd send in the stronger men and lethal warfare next. So we came up with a plan. We'd strike back first by weakening them step by step."

"You guys sneaked your way into their camps and set on fire the supply shack." Crystal nodded. "Without the food and medication, a great portion of the Avalor soldiers were weak from malnourishment or natural infections. Then another team destroyed the stables to release the horses, another stole all their exploding powder...OK, I get sidetracked whenever I talk about wars! Long story short, we handicapped the Avalor army of all their generally used warfare before my father and I brought in the final blow."

"What are you suggesting? That we weaken the Labyrinth before we hit the crystal chamber?" David asked. Fidget nodded.

"Not a bad idea...Hey, where's Romana?" Regina's question caused them to look around the tunnel. Maleficent's granddaughter was nowhere in sight.

"Jareth doesn't know that Romana is betraying him, so she still needs to play the role of his loyal Masked Girl." Crystal Maze made an unexpected right turn, revealing a ladder going upward towards a path of light from above.

"Great, she does that, Rosetta and her allies hit the crystal chamber, and we hit the Labyrinth's weak spot!" Fidget hurried his way up the ladder first. "This should be a piece of..."

CRAACK!

AAAH!

"Fidget?" Killian could not see what the Batrishan was seeing as the latter poked his head out of the manhole, but it only took him a good five minutes to see why once Fidget flew his way out. The heroes and the princess got out one after the other into this stone garden.

Just in time to see Fidget charge right at a bunch of goblin guards kicking a Batrishan child.


	18. Note From Author

FACING DESTINY

Note From Author

Hey, guys.

I'm terribly sorry to say this, but because I'm losing interest in writing OUAT fanfics, I will be discontinuing my series and therefore will not finish FACING DESTINY.

Thank you very much for being awesome readers for the past two years and don't hesitate to read my other fanfics. If you wish to write the rest of the franchise, this story is up for adoption.

Sincerely,

Emersonian


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